Tosha, CGC

(1/1/90-5/23/02)12yo, dilute black/white, blue-eyed spayed female

QOATS – Queen of All Things Siberian, Co-Leader on my sled team until a year after her vision failed with cataracts.  (Yes, you read that correctly.) Despite the bone cancer, cataracts, & epilepsy, she lounged in splendiferous retirement under the coffee table and gives me what for at the beginning, and end, of every run.  

She ran on the sled team from 1995-2001 (and supervised in 2002).  And then came Nu.  And then came Chief.

Before that Tosha taught me everything I should’ve known before I got my first sleddog. Like for instance… she did not have a wierd hair problem… she was shedding. So I probably shouldn’t have taken scissors to her fur.

She was the dog who loved puppies, babies of every species, and even dragged home baby groundhogs — with a ticked-off mama groundhog on her tail, right through the doggie door and into the kitchen.

She taught me what housetraining was. When I got stuck at work in an ice storm and didn’t make it home for 24 hours, she knocked me flat when I opened the door and peed a river, one inch off the porch steps. THAT is a housetrained dog.

She also taught me the art of cake decorating. When you’re hosting Thanksgiving and jump in the shower only to come out with her standing on the stove, one paw in the dressing, one paw in the mashed potatoes while she licked the frosting off half the carrot cake. I learned to fluff up the dressing, re-whip the potatoes, and spread the cream cheese frosting from the back of the cake to the front again. No, I never told my family.

She taught me sleddogs will run away. Every time. So a chain isn’t a good answer, they really need a FENCE for exercising.