Report from the North

Two weeks ago, a five-year-old husky mix named Lorenzo joined my household. He is one of the many dogs to enter (and now exit) life with Arna Dan Isacsson in Fairbanks, Alaska. I visited Arna last year, and my story about her efforts to rehabilitate neglected and abandoned huskies and to encourage more humane, dog-friendly practices among mushers is in the current issue of Bark (January/February 2008). (In the photo, Lorenzo (left) and another Seattle-bound pup Emman arrive with Arna at SeaTac airport.)

Arna’s trip south to re-home two-year-old Emman and Lorenzo was almost cancelled several times because a pack of wolves was roaming the wilderburbs where she lives. Apparently, reduced snowfall had disrupted the wolves’ normal patterns, and they were preying on cats and dogs in the neighborhood. Arna’s November and December emails about marking territory with scarecrows and urine (her own) and playing music full blast would have been comic if the circumstances hadn’t been so serious. Amateur traps in the woods and errant gunfire being among the many wolf-prevention strategies that posed dangers in themselves. It was a reminder to me of just how difficult her avocation can be. In Fairbanks, rehabilitating and protecting these dogs is complicated by stretches of 40-below days, no running water, and, recently wolves.

Meanwhile, Renzo is bright-eyed, calm and well-adjusted, responsive to commands, a delight on trails (where he bounds like a gazelle) and city streets (about which he knows nothing). In his past are bad patches, periods of neglect, anxiety, boredom, and weeks on the lamb, but his four months with Arna seem to have smoothed these wrinkles and brought out his core healthy doggy self. I’m grateful to her and newly admiring of her work.

Lisa Wogan