Mona - our Alaskan Malamute rescue

Gotcha Day: April 6, 2025
Died: April 25, 2025

I'm obviously a big dog fan. While we currently have 3 Siberian Huskies, I love all dogs. So naturally I contribute to local animal shelters among other charities. That puts me on mailing lists. A lot of them. One day at the end of March I got an email from the Brandywine SPCA. They were having a "Name your own price for adoption" special. While I wasn't looking to add to our pack, I clicked on the link and browsed their website. And came across the listing for Mona.

She was a senior dog, between 9 and 10 years old. Mostly Alaskan Malamute, but with some husky in her. The photos had her looking like my senior Siberian, Neo. The listing said "A shelter is no place for a senior dog, she needs a soft place to land.'

My heart went out to her. Maggie and I took the trip up to West Chester to see her. She wasn't a encouraging sight. She was big (77 lbs) and blowing her coat with giant tuffs of fur coming off her. She totally ignored Maggie, and was just polite to me. She was also being treated for a respiratory infection and bad arthritis. She did seem chill and was friendly with the shelter's handler. She was in a concrete cubicle, while roomy, it still wasn't a great place to live. Very noisy with dogs barking all the time. And while the staff was friendly, and several of them really liked her, she didn't get much attention. It was sad.

Over the next week we discussed adding her to our pack. It came down to if our senior and pack leader Neo was okay with her we would do it. We knew that nobody else was going to adopt a senior dog with issues, everybody wants a puppy. The next weekend we travelled up with Neo in the Zen Wagon. They brought Mona out and put her in an enclosed outdoor area. We brought Neo in. They sniffed a few times and then ignored each other and spent the rest of the time sniffing around. Okay, I can work with that. If Neo is okay with her, the other younger ones will fall in line. We signed the papers.

One of the quirks was that she wasn't spayed. SPCA policy requires all dog adoptions must be a neutered animal. So we were "fostering to adopt". Once we got her spayed, they would finalize the adoption. Until then, she was still the property of the SPCA.

That day, she came home with us. Neo in the front passenger seat, and Maggie in the back seat with Mona in the back of the wagon. We didn't want any issues on the drive home. After 45 minutes, we were home, and Mona was ready to live in her forever home.

At first, she was prickly and growling and snarling at the other dogs anytime they came near . For the first week or so, we kept the pack separate from her. I started familiarization training starting with 10 min visits with Neo. Lots of growling and showing teeth, but by the end of week two, she was mingling with the whole pack. Still growling whenever they got near, but the other dogs got used to it and ignored her. By week 3 a lot of the growling had stopped and while she wasn't friends with the pack, she coexisted with them.

The shelter had warned me that Mona had resource guarding issues around food. Breakfast times in our house is noisy, with the dogs, mostly the young ones, barking and tussling. This annoyed her big time, but as long as I fed her first, everybody was good. The resource guarding issue also manifested in another way. *I* became a treasured resource. She decided that I was her new Mom, and wanted me all by herself. She would growl and dare the others to come near me. Very quickly she became a Velcro dog. Following me everywhere. 

After my morning shower, I'd open
the door and find her there waiting for me.

Dogs are amazingly resilient. After being abandoned in a motel room, living 3 months in a shelter, I was surprised at how quickly she came to love and trust me. When I take my occasional afternoon nap - cause I'm old and naps are awesome! - She would jump up on the bed and sleep next to me. When I started grooming her blown out coat, she relaxed and fell asleep, even snoring. That's trust!

Nap Time for us old folks

Grooming that blown out coat. Mona: ZZZZZzzzzzzzz

Other than me, her favorite thing was going on walks. Being that she spent the last 3 months in the shelter with maybe, a 15 min outing to an exercise yard twice a week, it's not surprising. And I obliged her. We went at least twice every day, and often more. Anytime I was near the front door, she would tilt her head and nod at me "A walk would be nice, don't you think?" Often I'd give in. 

Heading down the road

She was the best ever walking dog. She didn't pull, she walked beside me at my pace with an light leash, varying her distance from 2 feet to 5 feet, and usually back near me again. I would take her on long walks, much longer than my normal ones with the pack. She got to see horses and cows; peed everywhere in a 2 mile radius; and she loved it. My one regret is that I never got the chance to take her hiking on the trails. I know she would've loved that.

checking out the horses on the farm

I took the integration with the pack slowly. The dogs sleep upstairs with me at night. Mona was happy to spend the night down in the living room. I tried one night to have her upstairs but it stressed her out. Downstairs by herself was good for her.

In the morning, when I awake, I release the dogs from the bedroom and they charge downstairs to the side door, nosily and energetic. Mona would growl at them as they passed by the Living Room gate. I would chunk them out and then come back for Mona and she would have her turn to go out and relieve herself before breakfast. By the beginning of week 3 I would come down and release her. She would run to the side door, mingling with the rest of the pack, with no growling. Progress. 

While she wasn't a pack member yet, she was tolerating them. For the most part, they were interested but ignored her. Except for Hana. She was sure that Mona would want to become buddies. She'd run up to Mona all happy and excited. Mona would growl and stare threatenly at her. Hana would just smile, wag her tail vigorously, and occasional lick her face. She wasn't intimidated, she just knew it was a matter of time. 

Watching TV together, everybody chilling (Hana to her left)

At the end of the 3rd week with us, it seemed a normal day. We had multiple walks together.  At dinner time, she didn't want to eat that night. Which was not normal, but Sibes and Mals often will skip a meal. We all settled in the TV room and watched a movie. Four large dogs took up almost all the floor space. By 9pm it was time to call it a night and we all started our nighttime routines. Dogs went out to pee. Maggie headed upstairs, but Mona didn't move. She didn't even move when I left. Uh oh, something's wrong. 

About 15 mins later she walked about 15 feet into the hallway, and laid down. I knew something was going on. It was obviously she wasn't feeling good. Since I was under contract to foster, I was required to call the SPCA emergency hotline since they were the legal guardians. I called and left messages and they never answered or called back. After 3 hours,  I said fuck this, and took her to Blue Pearl, an emergency pet hospital. I don't care if I don't get reimbursed. She was in trouble, I had to do something. We spent the night there, getting back home at 5:30am. 

The examination found some sort of mass in her abdomen. She was scheduled for her spay surgery that (Friday) morning in a few hours. We decided that we would continue with the spay surgery and when they opened her up, they could take a look and see what's going on. Hopefully it would be benign.

Back home, Mona and I took an hour nap together and then headed to the surgery clinic. Later that morning I got a call from the doctors. They had put her under, but hadn't done the surgery. As she was under, they determined there was a golf ball size hard tumor in her abdomen, plus some fluid structures surrounding it. As they were putting in the anesthesia tube, they found a tumor in her throat. I knew she was tender there. There was also a tumor in the back of her mouth. The prognosis was her quality of life was going rapidly downhill. We decide the best thing was to euthanize her to prevent more pain and suffering. She already had severe arthritis which I personally know is painful. It was her time to go.

One of the things I liked about her was despite everything that had happened in her life, she was a strong and willful dog. If she didn't want to do something, she didn't. When we got to the clinic, she was still groggy, coming out from the anesthesia. They never did operate on her. The doctors said since she was somewhat sedated, they would put her on a gurney and bring her to us. Mona said fuck that, I'm walking. She came to the room, saw us there, wagged her tail and collapsed on the blanket. I was blessed to hold her as she crossed over. 

While her stay was short with us, only 3+ weeks, I am thankful that we were able to give her a "soft place to land". While I don't know her whole story, I do know she was a wonderful dog, able to put her love and trust onto me despite everything before in her life. Despite her short time with her, I fell in love with her and did everything I could to give her a happy home and life. I will definitely miss her. Godspeed big girl.