How to Keep a Human, as told by Amaruq

The Murine Invasions

My world used to be the perfect life, Puppies.

I had my very own truck, a proper beat-up Yukon pickup with “Dog is my Co-pilot” lettered on the door, referring to me, of course. All summer I sat on the box in the back, and during the winter I had my human trained to fit out the navigator’s seat for me inside. I even had a shaggy sheepskin to sit on. 

I had a nice log cabin in the woods—more properly, we had a cabin, since my human did most of the work inside it. She even made me a woolly rug to lie on, in front of the woodstove, while the fire she had trapped in there roared like a miniature forest fire, warming my back. When the heat got to me, I could move to my sheepskins on the sofa.

Best of all, I had the best human a husky ever had. How I would smirk when my buddies told woeful tales of being tied up all winter, forgotten even at minus forty-five degrees, or of being flogged along the trail by fanatical mushers until their paw pads were in shreds, or of shivering through the winter on a skimpy diet of stale kibble and the odd fish head. What a life! Some, like my girl Chimo, even get kicked or whacked when they howl. Now I ask you, how can a self-respecting husky refrain from howling at certain phases of the moon, huh?

Not my Pack Leader—she’ll even join me in a good howl (although it’s all I can do to keep my muzzle straight at that pathetic sound, a human trying to howl). We go everywhere together in my truck, and she never whacks me—never since I was a naughty pup, anyway.

By now, I’ve got her trained to buy enough bacon for both of us, and lots of roasts and steaks with bones in them. All I have to do to get dessert is drag her over to the ice-cream stand or the drugstore and give her my best winning look, and bingo! I’ve got a cone or a chocolate bar.

She’s a great pack leader. I was especially proud of her the day she beat up the human who was about to steal my truck, with me in it, from a parking lot. She’s very brave, for a human. She chases the wild horses out of the garden with only a little help from me, and once she even stared a bear down, a situation I usually avoid by pretending not to see the bear. But not my fearless leader. “Bear,” she growled, “this is my property—go find your own!” And he did, muttering to himself. Lives just up the hill now, and I don’t go near the place.

I boasted about my brave human to my buddies for months after that.

Little did I know that my idol had feet of clay. Everyone’s got a patch of fur missing somewhere, as my dam used to say. One late-summer day Pack Leader’s fatal flaw was revealed, and my happy husky life changed forever.

We’d been away from home for awhile, rattling up to Dawson City and back to take care of our store. I’ve always liked Dawson. I can get into a good fight there about four times a day, because there’s no dogcatcher and every dog has his territory well marked, especially me, the king of downtown. Cute bitches there, too, mostly Mackenzies and malemutes and a couple of half-wolves like myself, but also some more exotic, titillating types—there was a slinky, silky Afghan up for the summer who really had all the guys going until her hairdo fell apart in the Dawson City mud. Anyway, an excellent trip it had been—I was happily exhausted when we drove up to the cabin.

My nose woke me with a start the instant Pack Leader opened the truck door. It was still summer, and something had happened to the rodent population around our cabin in the weeks we’d been gone. Wow! I could smell a zillion mice! I dropped all thoughts of Dawson, bounded out of the truck and began pouncing, using the famous Perpendicular Bounce technique:  you hold your forelegs absolutely stiff and come down repeatedly along the little morsel’s path until whammo! Your paw coincides with its plans for escape. Easy! Pack Leader laughed. She loves to watch me perform the Bounce.