Dog of the Week – Ciara

Young, gifted and black – DotW is Ciara.

Ciara, supermodel and coat blower

SecondWind’s Ciara at Gealach Mor, another of those dogs we gave a Gaelic name to, to cause chaos, pronounced Kee-rah and means dark.

Ciara wasn’t meant to be coming to us, I went to visit Gail at Second Wind Siberians when I was back in New Hampshire in the Spring of ’09 to look at a male pup from a 5 week old litter. I had already spoken with her and we had agreed that one of the all white boys would be ours.  When I got there for my visit, most of the litter were asleep or hiding in the corner, except for this bossy, confident, noisy little black girl. She marched over to the pen gate, yipping and investigating. An hour later, I was smitten with her and her ways.  Trouble was, she already had a new home to go to. Putting her from my mind, I spent some time with the Gail and left, promising to come back before I flew home to Scotland again and see our male, whom was now called Fionnghall.

My return visit went pretty much the same way as my first, a litter of timid puppies and a bouncy, climbing welcome from “little black dog”. By the time I left, I made Gail promise that if anything changed in her status, she had a home with us. A couple of days later, I got a call to say that there was a chance that Ciara’s buyers might not be able to take her and if I was serious………………………….. needless to say, it all worked out the way it was meant to, and Ciara flew with her brother Fionn to join us in Alaska in August.

Ciara and her brother are like yin and yang – not only are they colour opposites, they are almost complete character opposites too. Ciara is an insanely curious, irrepressible bundle of love and fun and well, Fionn’s not.

Ciara was 1 year old on 14 April 2010, so her first winter with us was one of exploring, playing and a little bit of sled running. She was harness broken without any fuss and showed lots of enthusiasm. Her boisterous, robust character leads to her taking everything in her stride, and that shows with her play activities in the big field with the adults. Ciara has, on occasion, been told off by whichever dog she is annoying most at the time, and her response is to jump up and go bark in their face – as if to say – is that the best you can do, go on, take another shot……………………  there is no meanness in her, just sheer exuberance.

She’s a dinky little thing, vying with Avery for winner of the ” kennel pocket pet” trophy, but like Avery, I don’t think her physical size is any measure of her heart and drive. I’m so glad she’s here.

Ciara, waiting to get off her chain after feeding time, May 2010

Ciara at rest for just a moment, May 2010