Kaya's story begins shortly after we lost our beautiful Jake. (click his name to read his story too)
I was thinking of him and Googling images of his breed. Jake was a Utonagan, a relatively new breed of dog, bred to look like the Canadian Timber wolf. We had got him from a rescue centre as a companion for our Border Collie, Moss.
Our beautiful Jake
This time we were positive! We were NOT getting another dog! Losing one is heart-breaking, the thought that one day we were going to go through all that again with our lovely Border Collie Ollie reduced me to tears as it was. I certainly didn’t want another dog to put us through all that heartache again.
Read - Ollie's story
I just said “Paul, open the email! It’s meant to be!”
Reluctantly, he viewed the email....His immediate reaction was…”Phone them first thing in the morning! She is beautiful!”
Needless to say the first thing I did in the morning was phone the animal rescue centre, sending them my email address and other contact details, saying I was very interested in homing this dog. I waited eagerly for a reply.
Two very long hours past and then I got an email saying that the dog in question had already been reserved, all that was left was the home check, subject to that she would be re-homed the following week. I was gutted, but thought, “Ah well, it clearly wasn’t meant to be after all”
But I didn’t give up at that, I emailed the rescue centre the following week and asked how the home check had gone. I was told everything had gone great. They had found the perfect home for her and she was going to be picked up the following day.
Well that was it. Paul and I talked about looking online for other suitable rescue dogs, but decided against it, believing that we just weren’t meant to have another dog and would go back to our original plan of sticking to having just one dog.
The following day I got a phone call…The guy that was supposed to be taking Kaya home that day had changed his mind an hour before he was due to pick her up….She was once again up for re-homing!! This WAS meant to be!!
We were told several people had been to see her in the hope of re-homing her, but had been turned away because they just weren’t suitable. As this guy already had a Northern Inuit and clearly knew the breed they had decided to let him adopt the her. Why he changed his mind at the last minute was a mystery.
We went to see her the following day taking Ollie with us, obviously us re-homing her was all subject to her and Ollie getting along. (Read Ollie's story HERE)
The rescue centre was at the top of a very long winding country road. We parked our car at the bottom of the hill and started to walk up. At the top of the road we saw four or five people, all with dogs. We spotted Kaya straight away, sitting down next to the lady that was holding her lead. What happened next is an image I will never forget…As Kaya spotted us in the distance she stood up, wagging her tail excitedly. She was almost pulling the poor lady that was holding her lead over in order to get to us! The other dogs remained uninterested in us, but the closer we got to Kaya the more excited she got! As we got close to her she greeted us wagging her tail with so much force that she almost fell over!! It was as though she had been waiting for us, as though she recognised us instantly as her new family. She and Ollie took to each other instantly, it was as though they had known each other all their life! They bounced around playing happily together.
Ollie and Kaya's first meeting together
All the staff at the rescue centre couldn’t believe her reaction to us. They said she hadn’t reacted like this to anyone else, she had been friendly towards them, but calm, even the guy that was due to pick her up the previous day hadn’t had this reaction from her. She jumped around excitedly and followed us around happily, licking us and giving us her paw.
The staff at the home repeated what I had been saying since the very first time I saw her picture…”This was meant to be”
The next step was a home-check. The lady that had been taking care of Kaya said that because of the amazing reaction that Kaya had towards us she would do the home check the following Monday. Unfortunately because of where the home was situated and because of my husband’s work commitments it meant that we wouldn’t be able to pick her up for another week after the home check was completed. However, another member of staff said that because of how this was clearly “meant to be” He would actually deliver Kaya to us straight after the home-check!! They seemed confident that we would pass it, but had to follow procedure…..And so it was, we had the home-check 2 days later and an hour later this lovely man dropped her off at our house. This was the first time they had ever delivered a dog for anyone, but they said they had never seen a dog react in such a positive way towards strangers that Kaya had with us and they felt that she clearly needed to be with us as soon as possible…..
”It WAS meant to be”
For the first 2 months with us Kaya was a very quiet dog, in fact she didn’t even bark. She was very stubborn and suffered from selective deafness. Her recall was practically zero! Whilst she has always been an incredibly friendly and confident dog who fears nothing! There were certain things that she wouldn’t tolerate. She hated being towel dried, in particular around her legs and belly area, and would curl her lip up if we touched her in a way that she wasn’t happy with. We realise now, these issues were all part of her settling in process. She had come from a happy home and had been taken to the RSPCA because her previous owner was terminally ill. She had been in the same loving home since being a small puppy and suddenly at 5 years old, she ended up in a shelter. It must have seemed like her whole world had been turned upside down. Looking back I now realise that it took her quite a while to fully settle in and feel secure and confident that she wasn’t about to be moved on and placed in another home.
A couple of weeks after Kaya joined us I shared a picture of her on my Facebook profile. A friend of mine shared her picture and a friend of hers recognised her as the dog that her mum had sent to the RSPCA for re-homing. This lady was good enough to send me all Kaya’s paperwork, including her family tree, from which I have managed to trace a couple of her relatives, including a beautiful dog called Layka, who turns out to be Kaya’s Aunty. I also learned that she is in fact a Utonagan, not A Northern Unuit.
LAYKA - Kaya's Aunty
And this is Connor, who I also learned, with the help of Facebook and the paperwork supplied by the daughter of her previous owner, is Kaya's first cousin. (They share the same Grandparents)
She is now very vocal! She doesn’t just bark now at strangers passing the house or knocking on our door, but she also ‘talks’ to us in a very comical way that is difficult to describe really….Like a series of different whining, barking and howling noises! Which she does when she wants to get our attention, either to tell us it’s time for a walk, that she’s hungry and also to wake me up every morning after my husband has left for work!
She is very food orientated….Greedy in other words! So treat training has worked wonders with her…She will do virtually anything for food! But will also steal it given the opportunity! We can’t put a sandwich down, turn our back and expect it to still be there seconds later.
Her re-call now is about 80%. Which has made a huge difference and it obviously means that she gets a lot more exercise because we feel more confident letting her run freely. Every now and again though, that selective deafness sneaks back…She is a very inquisitive dog and is easily distracted. If she sees something of interest in the distance she is heads off in that direction like a rocket!! It can sometimes take us calling her 3 or 4 times before she takes any notice, but at least she does come back…eventually! (Adding the words "Do you want a biscuit?" to her name helps significantly! lol)
She now allows us to dry her with a towel and loves to be groomed daily.
We get lots of attention wherever we go with her. She is a very friendly girl and loves meeting people. People often come over to stroke her. Occasionally people will cross the road to avoid her, because they think she is a big bad wolf!
She is a very happy girl and she has made our life complete again. She loves Ollie to bits, but doesn’t seem to be able to read him very well! Sometimes when he has had enough playing he will growl at her to warn her to leave him alone….Her reaction is to whine and ‘talk’ to him, poking his head with her paw, until he eventually gives in and plays with her again.
It was never our intention to replace Jake with Kaya, that would be impossible!! But she did help to fill that hole in our hearts that Jake left. She gave us something to focus on.
Her personality is probably the complete opposite to his anyway.....But she does share with him a lot of the wonderful traits that Utonagans have.
It was never our intention to replace Jake with Kaya, that would be impossible!! But she did help to fill that hole in our hearts that Jake left. She gave us something to focus on.
Her personality is probably the complete opposite to his anyway.....But she does share with him a lot of the wonderful traits that Utonagans have.
READ ALL ABOUT THE BREED HISTORY BY CLICKING HERE
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