SAFFIE’S STORY.​

This book is dedicated to our special little girl and her brothers.​

We will always miss them and their little ways of making us laugh.

We will never forget you.

You are now together playing at the rainbows end.

I would also like to say thank you to everyone for the help and support in the Siberian husky club of Great Britain.  Without them, having our dogs would not have ever been possible.
                                 Thank you. 
                                              Dark Mountain Siberian Huskies.

​

ONE

​It was the thirty first of January when we first met our new babies.  Saffie was black and white, small but still a very self-assured dog.  She was a law unto herself, and she knew it.  Everything that happened in our house, and out of it, we could safely say that Saffie had something to do with it. For what reason we didn’t know. 

              Koomie, now he was completely different in everyway.  He was grey and white; his colour was the colour of storm clouds. That didn’t change him; it didn’t make him a bad boy.  He was my boy from that day to this and always will be.  He always looked after his sister and he did it well.  I hope, still does.
               ​

TWO
Eleven months previously
              
             “We were given to a dogs home in London.  Why? We will never know now.  If our people loved us or not who could tell. I hope so; we didn’t do anything wrong, or anything to make them to dislike us.

               Our first night in the home was very frightening and strange.  The rooms were not what we were used to; it had a cold concert floor and one bed that was not big enough for Koomie and me.  Koomie, who was a total gentleman, insisted that I had the bed and he would have the floor.   I can remember that I was crying and panicking.  Walking up and down, just looking for our people, but they never came.  Our other brother came in with us, but they took him to a different place.  We had to wait for him wherever we went, he could not walk very fast because of his arthritis.  We didn’t mind, we were a family and he was our brother, and we loved him. The people that took him away never looked at it that way, he had arthritis and nobody would want a dog that would not run and play. They were wrong, we wanted him.  We have never seen him since that day and we miss him so very much.

               Koomie kept nudging me, trying to make me sit down.  That made me more determined to carry on, to keep the people on their toes until we got to see our brother again. It never worked.

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THREE

                We were there in that dog prison for one month.  Humans came and humans went, looked and said “ahh, what lovely dogs”, they all asked
about us, but nothing ever came of it.  They were told that we were very special dogs and not everyone could cope with us. Is that why they took our brother away? If we were that special then why did they take our brother away without giving him a chance?  He was mine and I wanted him back. I was losing a little weight and my muscles were wasting away but nobody seemed to care.
                 One morning while we were having our breakfast a lady came up to us and told us we were going away. We were taken to the big room at the front of the building, there; in a big blue van was a little lady.  She was only just tall enough to look over the steering wheel.  Her name was Joi Barnes; she was the president of the Welfare for Siberian Huskies.  There was a lot of talking and laughing, but finally we were put into the van. For the first time in a month we had some cushions to sleep on.
Koomie and me wanted to see our brother walking over to us, but it never happened.  Our brother was put to sleep within one week of us going there.  No goodbyes, no nothing.  I wish we could have said Goodbye to our brother, we will see you again our friend.

     The journey took forever, or what seemed like forever.  After living in London for thirteen years, all we knew was houses, high rise flats and offices, so we could not believe our eyes when we stepped out of the van for the first time. 

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​FOUR

There in front of us were rolling hills and fields.  There was no pollution and no traffic; our brother would have loved this.  We had a
Stream running across the bottom of the garden. We were even allowed to run free on the garden and we were fed a real dinners.  Best of all we were not alone; there were more huskies, more than I could count.  Koomie said there had to be about thirty or more; he was a little more intelligent than me so I just agreed. 

        Our new home was a warm and comfortable; it was a shed in the garden and the run was covered so that the wind and rain were kept out.  We were there for a total of eleven months, of what seemed a long holiday.  We thought that it was going to be our home for the rest of our days.  Until the day came that changed our lives, forever.

            We heard a car outside of our run.  We didn’t know it at the time but it was time for us to go and leave this place.  We were being taken away from our home again, what had we done this time?  We had not barked and we were behaving ourselves. Ok I was not eating as much as I should but that was just me.  I was losing weight, Koomie didn’t look very well but I guess that was kennel stress.

              We were put into a car, without cages. The seats were a little strange beneath my feet because they were soft and spongy.  Koomie and me soon got ourselves comfortable and fell into a restless sleep.

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FIVE

It may have been eleven months ago but I was still thinking of our brother.  I don’t know how long we were there for but it didn’t seem that long until we stopped
outside some shops.  We were put on our leads and walked for about ten minutes.  A lot of people came up to us and petted us, telling us how beautiful we were, that was nice.
          We continued our journey up the M5 motorway from Cornwall, and onto our new home in Staffordshire.  We arrived at around 11pm on the thirty-first of January 2000; this is a day I will not forget.  It was raining, cold and the wind was howling down the road.  It was making the trees bend over so that the tops were almost kissing their roots.  Koomie and I didn’t want to go outside in this weather.  We didn’t want to go outside, not in this.  We could stay in the car for the night or until the rain stopped. 

                What came next was a complete surprise to both Koomie and me, as we walked into the house, there in front of us was the biggest bed we had ever seen.  It was bright red with big red cushions, and it was in the front room, the place where the people eat and live. There were bones and toys all over the floor.  Did they realise that we were thirteen years old and didn’t play with toys.  The bones and the bed were just the ticket to our hearts and the three-piece suite looked rather homely too.  After about two days the big bed was made the way we wanted.  There was no stuffing left inside and there were bits of red material here and there, and even in the garden under the bushes.

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SIX
              Our new people took some time to get used to us.  They were told how to treat us, how to act around us and even how to build their lives
around us. That is exactly what they did in everyway, shape and form.  We had to be left in the pen that our people had built for us in their garden, just while they got everything ready for us.  Then, for the first time in eleven months we were in a house.  Koomie and me had a little cry together in our bed, not that we were unhappy or anything like that.
We were missing our brother; he should be here with us.

                During the day while Mick and Jo were at work, we had to go into the pen but we didn’t mind.  We knew that the moment Jo or Mick came into the house they would be straight outside to get us.  That lasted for about one week, and then they started to know us a little bit better, so the pen started to go out of the window, and the house was beckoning us with a vengeance.  That is when it started; we were in the house while they ate their tea and even while they were at work.  Koomie was still a little bit off colour but he looked like he was getting better.

       Jo and Mick were getting married on the tenth of June so they were out of the house a lot, they had things to sort out, the church, the clothes and the normal stuff they do.  It wasn’t long before Jo and Mick decided to get a wedding planner to help out, that way they could spend more time with us. We used to go out with them to the town and around their friends; it was starting to be like a real home.

       

​SEVEN

The bombshell came three days before Mick and Jo’s big day.  We were all out walking in Cannock chase, and Mick noticed that Koomie was weeing blood.  Straight away and without a second thought we all went to the vets for a check up.  We were there for about ten minutes when the vet came back in and told us something that made all of our hearts sink like lead weights.  Cancer.  The one thing that everyone dreads had happened to my brother.  Mick had started to think of Koomie in the way that I didn’t think was possible.  He was his boy and I was Jo’s girl.

       Koomie had the operation to remove the growths.  They removed some lumps from inside him about the size of tennis balls. We all hoped it would work out, but the vet said that we might loose Koomie in about six to twelve months.  We went to collect him, obviously we were very upset and Koomie was groggy.  Mick carried him to the car and placed him in the back seat and we went home.  Koomie was put into a new big red bed (another one they had to buy) in the living room; he looked so helpless in that big space.  I kept wanting to climb in with him but was stopped every time; I suppose it was the best thing to do because he needed the rest. 

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EIGHT

       Mick and Jo’s big day came; it went off very well, but the thought of Koomie being at home made it a little solemn. It looked like things were getting better with Koomie, but three days later he died, my brother, my best friend, my soul mate, dead.  My new mom and dad and me didn’t know what to do, we were in a nightmare of our own. My dad cryed for days, it broke his heart. Koomie was now playing on the rainbow with his brother; I
just hope he knew how much he was loved, by us all.

            For weeks after the house was so empty without Koomie.  Mom and dad went back to pick up his ashes, they placed him on the welsh dresser in the living room from where he could watch over me.  Life was getting back to normal finally, I was still missing Koomie but I was getting by. 

            I started to lose a lot of weight and my people started to worry about me.  I had regular visits to the vets for tablets and the like, but that didn’t work like it should have.  They had an idea about phoning Joi Barnes to ask for advice and help, it worked out that she could help more than we had ever dreamed.  Joi had a phone call from some people, who had two huskies that they needed to rehome; they had just had their second child and didn’t want the dogs anymore.  The next day Mick and Jo found someone to look after me for the day, and then they headed back down to Cornwall. 

           

​NINE

Mick and Jo met up with Joi Barnes in the morning and headed to where the dogs were kept.  In the garage they met the two dogs that were to come and live with us.  Moushka was a light grey dog of nine years old and very lovable.  Chinchsky was a dark grey boy of ten years old, he didn’t care if he got any love or not.  As long as they were both together he didn’t care, they didn’t want to be separated.  Not that that was going to happen, not now my people had them but it was still in their minds.  Now that my people had them nothing was going to part them.

      They finally made it home at around midnight. Moushka and Chinchsky finally had their first look at their new home. Ok it was dark but they could see what mattered, me.  Just the same as Koomie and me they had to spend some time in the garden pen, not just to get used to their new and strange surroundings but for them and me to get to know each other.  That didn’t take to long thankfully, every time I was in the garden doing my garden thing I would go and flirt with the boys.  My dad said that they would have to stay in there for a week or two, but he didn’t know about my little plan.

         It took about three days to get them to notice my disappearing tricks into the garden for more and more time.  My dad was doing his gardening and trying to build a gazebo, (what a laugh) his intentions were good but the gazebo was not.  He was watching me playing with the boys through the fence, and decided to try us together.  It worked, but he didn’t tell Jo because he knew that she would have gone mad.  I was happy that my flirting had worked, Moushka wanted to be my friend straight from the word go.  Chinchsky wasn’t that bothered, all he wanted to do was to get in the house and find somewhere to settle down and veg out.

        

​TEN

When my mom came in my dad took her to the garden to show her what he had seen with the boys and me to everybody’s surprise she agreed to let them in the house with me.  It was not like having my brothers’ back but
it was the next best thing.  Chinchsky found his chair by the front door, and Moushka and I began to be the best of friends.  Whenever we had bones I would eat all the meat off mine, and try to get Moushka to give me his.  It wasn’t easy, but I used to flirt with him until he took notice of me.  He dropped his bone to follow me, and then I used to pinch his without a growl or raised eye-lid.                       

         Koomie would have liked my new boys, I missed him.  My dad was still mourning him. It was hard for him to loose his first boy but the two boys and me were trying to rectify that.  Moushka and me ate together, slept together and walked next to each other.  Chinchsky was a loner, he and Moushka came together and were best of friends, but I was getting in the way and Chinchsky didn’t like that.  My mum and dad soon discovered that he didn’t like me, we had a tussle or two but it was nothing too bad.  He told me to stay out of his way and he would mine, that was the only thing wrong in our new little pack.  Chinchsky was the boss and he wanted everyone to know it, Moushka and me would just laugh at him and just let him carry on with his, the big I am thing.  We really didn’t care.
 

ELEVEN      
     One morning when we all decided to get out of bed we had a really nice surprise, in the garden was about four inches of snow.  So huskies, being the huskies that our people think we are began to play in the soft white stuff.  I would chase the boys, then they would chase me, and they would always
catch me. Its not that I wanted them to but I was older and had arthritis and I also wanted Moushka to catch me.  Once we were all really wet and covered in snow we thought it was about time our mom and dad were up.  So the three of us went traipsing into the kitchen, through the living room, had a little roll on the three piece and the rug in front of the fire, and like a well executed plan.  Ran headlong up the stairs towards our people’s bedroom.  We were really careful not to miss the spare room on our way, you know, the one that is always nice and clean.  With fresh, clean quilt and sheets just in case some unexpected friends come over for the weekend. 

         Mom and dad were sound asleep, zeeding away with out a care in the world.  Then, without a moments warning three wet, muddy and cold huskies were like projectiles leaving a canon, straight on top of them. It was really funny; we have never seen them move so quickly.  Then as quick as we arrived to cause the mayhem we were gone.  By the time we got down stairs all we could hear was screaming and shouting, then quiet, then

laughing.  It worked they were up, and about time.

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TWELVE 

       When they finally decided that the spare room and their bedroom were fit for habitation once more they came into the quagmire of a living room. Oh for a camera, the look on their faces was a picture.  Chinchsky was on his chair; Moushka was lying spread-eagled on the settee and I was just finishing my last shake in front of the TV and hifi.  Their hands and heads found each other, all we could decipher from all the mumble and
Gobbledegook that was coming from their mouths was, “oh dear, it looks like its snowing, we had better put the babies outside and tidy this mess up.” 

          Once the house was looking like a house that was lived in, my dad decided to take mom and us for a walk over Cannock Chase.  It wasn’t that he was very mad but the walk may help him clear his mind of all the thoughts of evil doings.  After about five minutes dad was rolling around in the snow with us.  He had forgiven us, but us being who we were just didn’t care.  Even if he could tell us off, which he couldn’t.  It would just go into one ear, roll around for a while to see if it could sink in then go out the other a little faster. So there was no point even trying. 

           I don’t know if it was fate or just luck that we were up there that day, but we happened to walk into two very nice people.  They had some huskies with them. Their names were Mike and Dawn Hammond.  They started to talk about how they rescued huskies, and how they had visited Alaska, and

how they race their dogs.  My mum and dad were invited to go and watch them train on the Chase.  So one day we were all loaded into the van and to the forest we went, none of us could even imagine what we were about to see.

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THIRTEEN 

            Mike and Dawn were already there; they had about seven dogs tied to the front of this thing that looked like a BMX but it had three wheels. It was could a rig; apparently everybody that races huskies has one or two of
these.  It has two wheels at the back and one on the front; the dogs were in pairs apart from the one at the front.  That was their lead dog, the one that turned the team left and right, the one that the rest had to follow.  The people were talking for what seemed like hours about dogs and racing, while me and the boys were just getting bored and deciding what mischief we could all get up to when we finally got home.

          From that day on my mum and dad was hooked, and nothing was going to stop him or my mom from doing their new hobby.  But little did they know how much time, money and effort it was going to take just to get it off the ground. 

We all went to training classes that the Husky Club put on at Trentham Gardens, I think that they learnt quite a lot because the next thing I knew my Dad had one of those funny looking bikes with 3 wheels and no seat.

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​FOURTEEN

Where are they going to sit? And if he thought I was going to pull it he was very much mistaken.  Moushka and Chinchsky had a go but to everybody’s’ amusement all they did was walk through the woods sniffing and looking at the views and neither of them had a clue what to do.

My Mum and Dad went onto the Internet and spoke to people to get as much help as possible.  While looking at sites on the Husky Club web site they came across Azgard, the people who looked after the dogs in that kennel were Chris and Andrew.  My Mum and Dad got in touch and were
invited over to meet them and their dogs.  When they got there they saw that one of the bitches had recently had puppies and they were running around everywhere.  When they got home they decided that they would like a puppy so they phoned Chris and Andrew back and asked them if it would be possible for them to give one of the puppies a home.

They were invited back over and after being grilled and after they had phoned Joi Barnes it was agreed to let them have a puppy.  Her name was Azgard Fully Loaded but my Mum and Dad decided to call her Luna. They weren’t able to bring her home, as she was only 6 weeks old.  She was grey and white and very small but we were soon to find out that she lived up to her name of Fully Loaded.  Before we went with our Mum and Dad to pick her up they had a phone call from Chris, she asked them if they would like 2 puppies.  The second one was a red and white boy; his name was Azgard

 

FIFTEEN

​Rag Tops, Rags for short.  We all decided to accept their offer and have both puppies to keep us three oldies on our toes.

My Dad had a Ford Capri, in showroom condition.   He kept it in the garage, which adjoined the kitchen.  He only used to take it out of the garage on sunny days, polish it and put it straight back in the garage.  It was his pride and joy but he had to sell it to make room for the pups.  They changed the garage into a puppy room with a tiled floor, benches and a kennel for them to play in.  I used to go in with them to play and pinch their bones when I had finished with Moushkas and mine.

It wasn’t long before Rags started to grow into his long gangly legs.  He started getting very very big, so big that I could walk underneath him without much problem.  Chinchsky being top dog saw him as a threat and didn’t like him so they were not allowed to mix in the house while my mum and dad were not there because when they did they used to fight, not bad, but Chinchsky used to state his dominance over Rags.  Luna on the other hand got on famously with everybody as long as they didn’t mind that every time she was allowed in the house she did the ‘Wall of Death’ over the settees, the armchairs, the doors, the walls; basically over everything and everyone that couldn’t get out of her way.

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SIXTEEN
At about nine-months old Luna came into season for the first time and fell head over heels in love with Moushka, which wasn’t fair because my Mum and Dad had him neutered so he couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to, or so they thought.  It wasn’t long before everybody decided that the house was too small for our people and us dogs so the people started looking for something bigger.  They found a house in Wales, which was twice the size of the one in which we were living.  So us dogs packed our people up and all their belongings, put them into a van and moved to Wales, right at the foot of the Black Mountains in the Brecon Beacons National Park. 

We arrived at about midnight on a cold November night, it was not much fun, there was no heating and nothing for us to sleep on while our people did what they had to do.  The day after we were all put into the van for what seemed hours.  Mick and Jo were sorting out the house, getting all of their furniture and belongings just how they wanted them.  Once my mum could manage with the small items she sent my dad into the garden to start building the new dog run and make the garden secure.  He had managed to beg all of the fence posts from the site where he worked in Birmingham, which made life a little easier for him.  Once all the fence posts were up he had a delivery of concrete.  The lorry was only there for a short while but when it left there was about twenty metres by ten metres of the stuff.  Once he had smoothed it all out and finished for the night it started to rain, the rain in Wales didn’t just come downwards it came from every conceivable direction possible, and it somehow got into every orifice, covered or not.  That is when me and the rest of the dogs all went upstairs and crowded into the bedroom that overlooked the garden, laugh, I didn’t think it was possible to laugh so much in such a short time.  To see them doing what they were doing, and the way they were doing it.  They looked like Laurel and Hardy. 

        

​SEVENTEEN

My dad and mum had to get in the van and drive to the nearest       B and Q to get some tarpaulins to cover the concrete, which by the way was quick setting and my mum forgot to tell him until they had done everything they needed to.  As my dad was trying to cover it (the bloody stuff is what he started to call it by then) his feet were getting stuck, the more he moved the worse it got. Until the last possible step his boot got stuck, as he lifted his foot the boot stayed there so not wanting to fall over he put his unbooted foot into the “bloody stuff.” Lifted his foot again and his sock came off.  But
his foot had to go down again; by this time my mum was laughing and couldn’t help even if she wanted to.  That is when she told him that it was fast setting. The sock is still in there somewhere.  There was not just the pens in the garden but also a lot of grass that we could play on, it was not long before we all discovered that if you move your two front feet in a forward motion big deep holes would appear.  That was lots of fun for our people. Especially when it was raining.

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EIGHTEEN
Rags and Luna were now old enough to be in the pen on their own during the day, which I didn’t like much because Rags looked after me.  Rags and Luna would come into the house every now and again but Luna was still like a circus Wall of Death rider so everybody still had to duck to avoid her for the first half an hour until she mellowed out, but Rags was so chilled that ice cubes would fall from him whenever he walked.

At Colwyn Bay we met some people from South Wales before we moved and they only lived up the road and knew where to train the dogs.  It was called Pembrey Forest.  It was nice on the dogs feet because it was sand and grass, with loads of trails to train on and it was especially nice for me because being off the lead I could wander where ever I wanted and often did to the fright of my Mum and Dad. 

After a few more years I couldn’t wander far because of my arthritis.  It was getting bad now and my eyesight was failing with Corneal Dystrophy, but when I took myself for a walk Rags was always there to look after me until he wanted a biscuit and then he would leave me stranded.  My Mum and Dad would then have to come and rescue me, which I didn’t mind because it was funny to see them running around the woods trying to catch me. 

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NINETEEN
    We used to travel around the country to different Husky rallies in the van.  At Colwyn Bay, which was for the Siberian Husky Welfare we used to stay at Joi Barnes’ house on Anglesey.  I used to get special treatment from her because I was the last one that she fostered out before she retired.  At the event they used to have a parade of welfare dogs for the public to see and Joi used to take me round.  The last year that I went I couldn’t quite manage the walk so Joi Barnes carried me. 

My arthritis and my Corneal Dystrophy were now getting worse but I did try my best.  I did still play with Rags and bite my Mum and Dads’ hand or anything I could get, it was not just my Mum and Dads’ hand it was any hand that was silly enough to try and stroke me.  The reason was that because of my poor eyesight I thought anything coming towards my head was food and I’d try and eat it, moving or not.  That was my excuse anyway.

Around the front room, kitchen and parlour were sleeping bags, quilts, pillows and as much vet bed as you could want just to try and help me lie down and be comfortable.  The dog flap in the back door had to be lowered as much as possible to help me get in and out of the garden, which Rags didn’t like very much as being so tall he had to nearly belly crawl through it.  Moushka and the rest of them didn’t mind because they weren’t so gangly as Rags.  I had to have help standing up after lying down for a while because of

my arthritis and because of my eyesight I would keep standing in the corner just to feel safe when my Mum and Dad went out.  It’s not that I had anything to worry about because by this time Rags and Luna were housedogs so Rags was still there to look after me.

My Mum and Dad had to make the decision that they knew was inevitable. I couldn’t walk and I kept bumping into things.  I have had the best four and a half years of my life with my family; I have loved every day and everyone.  All I can remember now is the feeling of being warm, loved and wanted.

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TWENTY

     A tear ran down my Dads cheek as he cradled me in my last moments.  It fell from his eye and splashed of my cheek, my mum was holding us both
and crying.
Please don’t cry for me.  I am safe and warm with my brothers.  I know you will never forget my brothers or me.  I know that you will keep us in your hearts.
Goodbye Mum.  Goodbye Dad.  Give the family a kiss from us all.

Chinchsky passed away today; the date is Friday 2nd   September 2005.  He had cancer of the mouth, it all happened so fast,  it started with a bad tooth that the vet took out. Its not supposed to happen like this. Without the cancer he would have gone on longer and he may have been able to teach Fyr and Blue a thing or two with his mumbles of wisdom.

 

TWENTY ONE

                Don’t worry about him mom and dad, we are looking after him now. Your job is done.  He  is now with my brothers and me and the pain will not bother him no more.

SAFFIE
          Just remember those strange things that happen around the house, when the other dogs just stand and look into thin air. It may  be nothing, but it may be me and the boys coming to visit you.