Meet Kat, Advanced Graduate Student and Hobby Instructor and her dog, Niko!

 Hi! I go by Kat around here. 😋

Niko and the Sister-in-Law of her breeder
in front of the Wal-Mart (it's complicated)

One evening this spring, I dropped off my husband and a few boys at a baseball game and was running quick errands one day this spring. I had to be to work in a few hours. On the park strip just North of the Walmart I saw a sign: "Malamute Puppies." After we picked up what we needed from Walmart, I thought, Why not? We can just say "hi." 

The next morning after work, my car loaded with all sorts of 'new puppy' purchases, I stopped in Elsinore on the way home and picked up our "Nilsa Coconut."

I knew a few basics from the study I had done with Huckle. The one thing I knew more than anything else: I needed a trainer. I found a card I had picked up from our veterinary office (thinking this will come in handy when eventually bring home our next Leo puppy). It was Roxanne's card.

It took some convincing, but after speaking with Roxanne and some of her graduate students, I decided we should give her Foundations Course a try. By the time we brought Niko home she was too old for the Mannerly Puppy course, so we dropped right into the FC.

Dogs are an investment- a healthy relationship with a balanced dog is an investment, and if anything, the Foundation Course has been an investment! I have alternated between pride - in myself and in Niko- and frustration - with myself and with Niko- but the growth we have both made has been incredible. 

The FC helped develop my relationship with Niko. As we progressed week by week, I was able to learn and grow alongside her, and as her developing personality presented us with new challenges, it was nice to belong to a team that could help me meet those challenges and troubleshoot resolving them, together. I have loved that working with Roxanne means having a whole group's worth of a support-system. 

I love Koehler's entire concept of trusting the dog to learn to choose for itself to follow you. I think this method would have been such a benefit for my Huckle when he was a puppy. And especially with as independent a breed as the Alaskan Malamute, this training method has been a real blessing to me. 

By Week 6 of the Foundation Course, Roxanne was emphatically suggesting we also participate in her Retrieve Course that summer, in order to help Niko learn to control her mouth- something we were already seeing the need for with our teenage Malamute. 

The Retrieve Course has been another opportunity for us to be challenged, to learn and grow, and come out the other side stronger than we were before.

I believe each of us in the RC- the dogs as well as the handlers - have had our sticking points, and sometimes our breaking points at various moments in the course. But through every point, Roxanne has been present and willing to coach, correct, guide, encourage, and cheer us on. 

I have loved being part of a team, a pack, with members who are willing to laugh with and at one another as well as offer each other solidarity, consolation, and encouragement. 

The RC has been one more way for Roxanne to stretch Niko and I into something I never dreamed we could be, and it has been so much fun!

We have been taking a break while Niko navigates her first heat, but I am excited to get back into practice and prove that we can complete our last two exams. 

(Just for fun)