How to Keep a Human, as told by Amaruq

The Fatal Flaw

Now, Pups, if you’re planning on keeping a human, you’ll have to learn to be psychologists. These apes can be a wolfdog’s best friend, but they need training and lots of tender loving care.

Chimo, muzzle it! Seelah—come here; your grandpaw is going to tell you a story. A story with a valuable lesson in it about humans, something every wolf-husky puppy should know. You, too, Taku. Park your paws.

As I was saying, you never know when your human will go snaky out in the Yukon woods. That’s when a little knowledge of psychology can save your human’s life. Especially if your human happens to be a cheechako. Yes, Taku, thank you; of course you know it; right, a newcomer to the North. You can put that paw down now.

I’ve saved my own dear human several times by playing therapist, but the time I remember best was the night she lost it all out in the woods, long, long ago when Pack Leader and I were still cheechakos, new to the True Woods.

We were miserable that first winter in Whitehorse. Not that we didn’t live in a fine new house, right on the edge of the forest, complete with an open fire perfect for stretching out on the coldest nights. Not that we were poor—Pack Leader’s new Job had seen the quality of my kibble rise several notches since we arrived. Yet the real essentials, the fine details of the good life, those were missing.

First and foremost, we had no wheels. Over my howls of protest, Pack Leader had sold our comfy old chariot before we moved north, and now we couldn’t indulge in my favorite pastime, tooling around town, me in the front seat with my head in the wind while she drove, singing along with the radio. Instead, day after day, lying trapped in my pen, I watched as lucky huskies wheeled by in battered pickups, tails waving, faces in the crisp wind, and I sighed with envy. I’d have given my back dewclaws for a truck like that.

Then there was that pen. Because we had no wheels, I had to stay home while Pack Leader went to work. Never before had she left me home, and I was mortified when she built me a pen, six feet high, and proceeded to lock me into it every morning as if I were some savage doberman instead of a civilised wolf-husky. All day, nothing to do but curl up, nose under tail, in a nest of frozen gravel. When finally I heard her approach, far down the street, I’d squeeze my eyes together so hard that they hurt, producing a few drops of liquid that froze onto my fur, just under my eyes. (Nothing gets to your human like a few tears, Puppies, for reasons I’ve never been able to fathom.)

Tears worked, too, every single day—she would rush to the pen first thing, scrabble at the lock, and fling her arms around me, dropping books and purse into the snow. It worked so well on her that I felt rather guilty, but after all, I had to do something. I certainly did not intend to weather the whole winter in that wretched pen.

But the worst part of our lives was sharing our den with the other human apes. They hated me. Whenever Pack Leader brought me into the house, they glared at me and barked orders in my direction, so that I slunk down to our basement room as quickly as possible, crouched low to make a smaller target of myself. In the safety of our tiny room, all those familiar possessions invariably reminded me of the good old days, when we lived with humans who accorded me the proper respect, and I had had the full run of a huge den. These people, now, I’d grumble as I nosed open our door and shook off that persecuted feeling, these people knew nothing about living with a dog. They ought to be blacklisted by the local canine council.

Oh, they had a dog themselves, a dumb bleached samoyed bitch who was allowed into the house twice a year and petted perhaps twice a week. She was so dumb and desperately lonely that she didn’t even complain. 

Well, not me. No self-respecting wolfdog would put up with this situation for long, I told myself resolutely, clambering up onto my dear old heavy velvet bedspread to let the cold soak out of my bones into the warm mattress. Somehow I had to convince Pack Leader to get us out of here. Why had we even moved to Yukon, if not so I could take up my true heritage as a wolf-husky, living in the bush, running free through the forests, and riding a battered pickup?