T_Kasak

I remember the day you were born, over 15 years ago. I cleaned your little fuzzy face to make sure
you could breathe, and I placed you close to your mother's milk. As you grew older, you were the
big "tuff" pup of the litter, the Alpha puppy, taking no guff from your littermates. We nicknamed you
"Blazer" before we gave you a real name because of the white stripe on your forehead. We soon
found that we would keep you and your sister, Kisha because you both were so wonderful. We
then named you "Kasak" and called you "Bear" as a nickname. We called you Bear because you
were like a big fuzzy teddy bear. You soon lost your alpha puppy tendancies and became the
sweetest animal, the gentlest creature I have ever had the priviledge of knowing and loving.

It wasn't always easy to keep you, your sister and your mother. Many would have put you up for
adoption when a divorce came, and the big house with a barn perfect for Malamutes became a
thing of the past. I struggled to keep you through thick and thin, and you repaid me a hundred
times over for my loyalty. I learned that even when your whole world falls apart, you will always
have your Malamute standing by your side.

My new wife ZiZi didn't know Malamutes when we got together, didn't have any idea that dogs have
deep feelings of love and sorrow too. I remember they day she learned, and it changed the way she
viewed animals for all of her life. She was crying in bed one morning over some small event that
seemed important at the time. Bear walked up to her and laid his head on her shoulder. She asked
me "what is he doing?" "He's comforting you" I replied. "Dogs don't do that!" she quickly
responded, somewhat astonished at the thought. "Bear does. He always knows when something is
wrong, and he tries to make me feel beter" I told her. And so it was that she came to love Bear as
much as I did, maybe more.

I almost lost you when you were 7 years old, when you became gravely ill after staying at a kennel.
It seemed the life was slipping out of your strong body by the moment, and in fact was. The vet had
misdiagnosed the problem, making things worse. I prayed for you, though I rarely pray, asking God
to bless both me and the world with your life. I took you outside...you were barely able to
walk...and you ate mud from the stream, which you had never done before and never did afterward.
I almost stopped you thinking it couldn't be good for you. Something kept me from stopping you,
and you began recovering in a few hours. I found out later from a blood biopsy that you had 2
serious infections, either of which could have killed you. You tasted Mother Earth and she healed
you somehow, and so I called you my prayer pup..my miracle dog.

When your sister and mother died at 12 years old, I was grateful they had achieved such an old
age, and assumed you would soon follow. You amazed us with your strength and vitality, outliving
them by more than 3 years. Even though you slowed down a bit, you never let me get away without
taking you for your beloved walk in the park at 4 pm, even to your very last day.

It was such a beautiful day of sunshine and gentle breezes the day you left this world. You were
smiling and sniffing the wind in the backyard grass, watching squirrels play in the trees, perhaps
hoping one would fall in front of you, as had happened once before, years earlier. You laid your
great head down in my arms and just quietly faded away. And so it was...I was with you when you
breathed for your first breath, and with you when you breathed your last. I like to think something
special happened. Some special bond rarely achieved, an unbreakable link between man and
animal. Something that can never be broken in my heart, for in my heart you will always be, resting
your head on my shoulder, letting me know you are somehow always there for me.

My Blazer...My Kasak..My buddy Bear..My Prayer Pup..My best friend forever and always.

North Country Kasak...Breathed his first December 8, 1986......breathed his last March 2, 2002

Loved and missed by Michael Howard