Bruno, a 170-pound Malamute, is not impressed with the newcomer. The wolf-like dog strains at the end of his leash, growls, howls, and stares the stranger down. If he hadn’t looked like a huge stuffed toy, it might have been completely intimidating.
Intelligent brown eyes, enormous paws, and a dense fluffy coat all made Bruno seem more huggable than threatening, though, and it turned out he, like most Malamutes, was all talk. After a couple more “woos” and a sniff, he settled down on the grass with his people, Jim and Connie Ross. Most of his act was intended to impress Roxy and Clyde, the two Malamutes he was visiting, anyway.
“It’s all about the show, the drama,” Connie explained.
This way of demonstrating to others who is (supposedly) in charge is a strong trait in Alaskan Malamutes, or “Mals.” Establishing dominance may be part of Mals’ DNA, because many owners believe the breed is descended from wolf ancestors.
“Hence the ‘woos’ and the howls,” said Michelle Reaves, a volunteer with the Washington Alaskan Malamute Adoption League (WAMAL).
Michelle belongs to Roxy and Clyde, both rescues from WAMAL in the past two years, and she says its unusual to hear a bark out of her 86-pound female or her 102-pound male, but they talk all the time, in clipped howls called woos.
“If he gives out a bark, it turns almost instantly into a woo,” Michelle said of Clyde.
It’s easier to imagine these imposing dogs as the rescuers, not the ones needing rescue, but Michelle said that WAMAL takes in about 100 Mals each year, some surrendered by owners who can’t give them the exercise or space that they need, some abandoned.
Roxy fell into the second category. WAMAL found her on the street, with a litter of five week-old puppies.
“Somebody quit on her when she had a litter,” Michelle says, tight-lipped.
That was about a year ago. Michelle had been volunteering with WAMAL as part of her community service work to finish her degree. She fostered some animals, and did transports, and had already fallen in love with the breed.
“Clyde was pretty much hook, line, and sinker for me,” she said, explaining that she’d adopted Clyde in May 2010, when all she was supposed to do was take care of him for a short time, then send him on to his new home. After she found out that an older male Mal at the new home had rejected Clyde—only 72 pounds when he was rescued—and he’d been sent back to the kennel, she started the process to adopt him.
“So Clyde is a foster failure,” Michelle jokes, “and someone called Roxy a transport failure. I was supposed to transport her from the volunteer who brought her here to the kennel… She never made it past crawling in my lap and being brought home.”
Roxy still tries to crawl into her lap sometimes, even at 86 pounds. Usually it’s when she’s been corrected for disobeying her training, something she does periodically to test her place in the pack.
“We are their pack, and there is definitely a pecking order,” says Bruno’s person, Jim.
“You have to be the wolf,” adds Connie.
Maintaining the spot at the top of the pecking order is critical for Mal owners, because “These two are independent thinkers,” Michelle says. “They’re not like the retrievers and a bunch of the other breeds that are fully intent on pleasing their people. These guys will ignore you just as fast as anything else, and they might come when they feel like it….”
That personality trait is both a strength and weakness for the dogs. Mal owners love them for all their quirks, but people new to Mals may not be prepared for the hazards of living with a big willful dog, clever enough to create his own entertainment when no one’s around.
After all, the dogs were bred for work. The Mahlemut Indians originally raised the dogs to pull sleds, much like Siberian Huskies, “… but the Huskies are considered the express trains, while the Malamutes are the freight trains,” Michelle said.
Stories of bored Malamutes include the two who scaled an eight-foot fence, and the one who stole an entire ham off a kitchen counter. The websites malamute.org and WAMAL.com are filled with tales of dogs chewing on shoes or CD collections, eating entire pumpkins from the inside out, climbing into already-occupied showers, and helping clean off their owners’ dinner dishes, sometimes even before they’ve eaten.
Most owners just laugh off the adventures, but some of those Mals end up with WAMAL.
“The expectations are not what they should be,” says Michelle.
Connie puts it more directly. “People adopt these dogs as puppies, and then they get huge like this, and I don’t think people realize what the food bill’s going to be, and the vet bill, or how much power they really have.”
Also, Jim says people “need to know their back yard is going to look like the moon after a couple of months,” because Mals are enthusiastic diggers.
WAMAL requires all prospective owners to get to know the breed before they commit to becoming a pet parent. The Rosses had an interview with both a WAMAL volunteer and her Mal before they could get Bruno, and Michelle recommends that even before the interview, potential adopters volunteer with WAMAL to really get to know the breed.
“These dogs have such personality,” she said.
They also have high energy, requiring regular exercise and a fenced yard, so apartment-dwellers are encouraged to consider another breed, says WAMAL. Most Mals also have a prey drive that can endanger small animals, but Bruno lives quite happily with their cat, the Rosses said.
“But it’s a big cat,” adds Connie.
Mals also need regular maintenance for their double coats, which they tend to “blow” twice a year, shaking off clouds of downy undercoat. They don’t have a lot of health issues, luckily, because for something as simple as trimming Bruno’s claws, “It takes three of us to hold him down!” Connie says.
Even so, she adds, “We’ll probably get another one soon.”
Life with an Alaskan Malamute is not for everyone, but for the right people, life without one is unimaginable.
For more information about WAMAL, or to donate, volunteer, or adopt, visit www.wamal.com, or send e-mail to wamal@wamal.com.
