Mistique

Mistique, Misty for short, is a husky mix that we kind of adopted by accident. About four years ago my ex and I decided we were going to go to the local shelter looking for a dog. We had looked online before our visit, but seeing as we had another dog had to do an in person meeting to make sure that everything clicked. Before my then boyfriend had moved in with me and my roommates, he had a full husky who true to nature was especially derpy but had needed to rehome him before coming to live with us. For that reason he had told himself that he wasn't going to get another husky because it felt a little like betrayal. One of the big things with us searching for a dog was that would act as a PTSD service animal for my ex. The natural level of energy for huskies is another reason that we went with the thought that we were looking for a different breed. It was a little bit biased but we also knew that we didn't have the space or free time to be fair to a large high energy dog.

When we walked in, one of the volunteers happened to be walking Misty in from having some time outside. We did comment that she was a beautiful dog but had also tried to tell the front desk clerk that we were looking for. They didn't hear the separation in the comments and we ended up in a room with Misty. As you can tell by the pictures we did end up hitting off with her and found she was actually very calm, most of the time. Despite our intentions in the beginning we proceeded with all the steps to adopt Misty, including a meet and greet with our other dog. One of the steps that our shelter takes great care with is meeting with the adoption counselors who advise you of the details pertaining to the animal being adopted.

In the meeting with the counselor we found out how Misty had not only ended up at the shelter but had become a little celebrity for the humane society. When we adopted her, she was roughly six and a half and had already been in the shelter twice. The shelter staff had a list of 'long-term' animals and Misty was one with the highest stay count, and it was only counting the continuous days of her second stay. Her first stay was caused by a willful drop-off from her then owners because she was either pregnant with or had delivered an unwanted litter of pups. I was a little annoyed when I heard this, especially because my town has a program to assist pet owners in fixing animals for cheap.

To be returned to the shelter Misty had to be first adopted. This brings up another issue I have with some people because she was picked as a gift for a third party who had not expressed any interest in owning a dog. The random, now owner, person who had been given Misty didn't abuse her, per say, but he was very neglectful. Misty was chained up outside with minimal shelter, small amounts of food and water, and little to no interaction with her now owner. You get the picture, it wasn't great. Luckily this household happened to be neighboring a property to an employee of the shelter. That employee approached the owner about the conditions and Misty was again signed over to the shelter.

Over the last few years we have experienced a few stories with Misty that are fun to laugh at, now. Originally we lived in a rental property that had large sliding windows. Well Misty had severe anxiety and abandonment issues led her to try and follow us when we would leave the house. At one point she popped the screen out of the window and proceeded to visit a different building in our apartment complex. Luckily she had been chipped and was wearing her ID tag so some nice owners called us and agreed to hold her until we could get home. She finished destroying the dog kennel that their baby German shepherd had already tried to eat. In response to this we asked our immediate neighbors to watch her occasionally and a harness was purchased for walks.

Mind you we lived in the building directly across from the complex's dog park and I told the neighbors that while she had to be harnessed to walk, it was okay to take her to the gated area without her harness. I didn't think that I needed to say that she still needed to be on a leash to walk across the parking lot. Needless to say they tried to take her over there without a leash and she ran. Due to an incident with my roommates dog, a chihuahua dachshund mix, and a pizza delivery driver the local animal control officer for the area happened to recognize Misty. After the dog ran from the neighbors, she was picked up by animal control who tried to come by the apartment and return her. Unfortunately none of us were home so Misty got to go back to the shelter for a night. We picked her up the next morning and while the staff were happy to see her they were glad it was just a visit.

After the Houdini styled drama with Misty we learned that putting peanut butter in a Kong or something similar was the only way we could leave without issue. The problem was when she was watching us leave it would give her understandable anxiety. We thought the issues were handled until we moved to a new house. She found ways to get loose and we would get into one of the cars and trick her into loading up because it was less stressful than trying to chase her with high traffic streets being nearby. On one of these excursions she decided to go to one of the restaurants that was about a block from the house. It was before they were open but some old stereotypes were what made it funny because Misty decided to go to a Chinese restaurant and sit on their patio to wait for them to open. We were jokingly mad that she tried to go without us and generally we shared our food with her.

I hate that Misty spent 6 years with people who could care less, but since then she has been the calmest husky I've ever met. Don't get me wrong, she is still true to her derpy nature and like to leave little fur bundles everywhere but she is a good dog. As I said she was adopted with the primary intent of being my ex's therapy dog, so she lives with him but we still talk and I visit. Despite being somewhere around 10 years old Misty loves to run and play at the dog park. She is a bossy old lady most of the time and uses her husky voice to be sassy as hell. My ex and I also have a daughter together who is two and has always loved her big dogs. Misty is the old lady of the house who specializes in rubbing all over anybody who sits down as if she were a giant cat not a dog. She is a part of our family but I can't really call her a fur-baby because she is way too much like a sassy teenager.