Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog: Living with Alyeska: Meet Alyeska

I know most people won't even bother reading this blog, but in all honesty that doesn't bother me at all. I have created this blog in order to follow the growth and development of Alyeska Lavender-Kamahele.

My boyfriend Jeremy Lavender and I moved to Juneau, Alaska in the fall of 2010 so that I could attend the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS). --Below is a photo of Jeremy Lavender soaking up the views of Yakutat, AK through his favorite medium... His camera! We had a three hour layover in Yakutat on our journey to Juneau. We made use of this time:) --

When school came to an end, we had to make the decision of whether or not we were going to relocate back to Anchorage for the summer. I put in an application at the summer camp I worked at the previous year and got hired on, so we started our trek back to our homes in Anchorage. The entire year that we were in Juneau we longed for a dog companion of our own. The streets and beaches and trails here in Juneau are full of amazing dogs and we knew that we were going to have to get one sometime in the near future. During the entire summer home we frequented the pound and bulletin board not completely serious about getting a dog.... but also not opposed to the idea if we found the right one.

--This is Jeremy and I pre-Alyeska.--

Well, we did end up stumbling upon the perfect dog for us and we started the adoption process with the Humane Society in Anchorage. BUT HOLD ON! It wouldn't be the perfect situation if they didn't make us work for her.

The Humane Society requires that you provide the name and number of your landlord or the owner of the property that you live on. Makes sense, they don't want dogs to end up right back at the pound, giving them a false hope of potential love. Well, considering we didn't live in Anchorage permanently anymore that posed a problem for us. We left the pound with dampened spirits but did not stop fighting for this dog for one minute. Once we finally got the all clear from our friends parents and the pound, we rushed back to fill out the adoption papers! BUT WAIT! When we arrived a family was already filling out her adoption papers:(

Lucky for us they ran into the exact same problem with the landlord issues and decided to not to worry about it until they finished filling out the adoption papers. The lady taking the papers could no process their request without their landlords permission and the instant that they walked out of the doors of the Humane Society, we were handed adoption papers and our newest adventure was about to start!

Unlucky for us, Alyeska's previous owners neglected to get her spayed (resulting in carrying god knows how many liters of puppies, let's pray the poor girl only had to go through it once!). Once we got her fixed the next problem that presented itself was getting her to our next destination.... She was not able to fly, so she had to get loaded up into the vehicle and start the trek back to Juneau with Spenser, our roommate, and myself. We traveled through canada until we got to Haines, AK where our great friend Bruce Bauer let us stay for the night while we waited to get on the ferry to take us on the last leg of our journey!

--Post-Surgery Alyeska all cozied up in her kennel waiting to get to her new home!--

We finally arrived in Juneau and met up with Jeremy after we got off the ferry. Our next challenge was going to be finding housing for all of us. We spent the first week and a half sleeping in Spenser's dads driveway, waking up and going to the rec center to situate the car for the day and using the facilities to shower and wash up for the day. That was probably the toughest week we have had to endure. We finally could not take it and our wonderful wonder WONDERFUL newly found friends Tim, Lisa and Cedar invited us to live with them on their beautiful tugboat The Challenger. Living on The Challenger was probably one of the greatest experiences I have had here in Juneau. Our cabin was relatively small and we had no running water, but we made it work! We eventually found out what we could and could not plug into the outlets in our cabin (we blew the circuit multiple times and ended up in the dark for an extended period of time. hehe. whoops!). Living with the Miles' really gave us an opportunity to bond with our new dog, who was still a little weary of the entire situation that we had just thrown her into. She was stuck being so close to us for the first three months of owning her that we have created the kind of relationship that we had only dreamed of having with our baby girl.

FINALLY! We found a home in North Douglas that was willing to rent to young adults with a dog. MAN! What luck. We have been happily living in our duplex for a few months now and Alyeska is happier than ever.

If you want to know more about how Alyeska is doing and what she is currently up to in life, then visit this blog frequently!

--Lounging in Haines, AK--