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My name is Armando Mascorro and I am the proud owner of
two Siberian Husky's. Below is s brief History of each dog, along
with the trials and tribulations of both. But first let me give you
a little history of me.
I live in Visalia California. I am at the foot of
the Sierra Nevada and for a better part of the year it is hot and
dry. I teach 6th grade as does my wife. I have two sons, age 5
and 1. We bought our first house in December of 2001. We have
a pretty good sized back yard but the pool takes up most of that
space. We own a cat and a little Shi Tzu that we got from the
pound. My first inclination in terms of getting a big dog was the
Akita. I researched all over the net on Akitas, and my wife and I
bought all the necessary literature. My wife was not to keen on the
idea, she thought they were ugly dogs. She kept telling me, husky,
blue eyes, pretty. She usually doesn't speak in blurbs like that but
I guess she was having a moment. One day as I was scanning the net
looking for more info on the Akita I came upon a site that had all dogs
listed by breed and what there plusses and minuses are. Now I do not
know where they got there information but I decided to take a look
anyways. Under Akita it said that they were a proud breed, good
watch dogs and loyal companions. However it also said that they do
not get along with other pets and children also. I took this with a
grain of salt, but I decided to check other sources. The more I
looked the more I found this to be true. A lot of sites were
reporting that the Akita has a bad temperament and since I was abut to
have a new baby I did not want to take the risk. I compared this
with the husky and I found just the opposite. They were known to be
great family pets, and the wife wanted one bad, but I guessed in all the
excitement I forgot to read the fine print. You know, the part about
them being total maniacs!!! 
This is Sierra the Dog. We got her in April of
2002. I was planning on paying up to 600.00 dollars from a reputable
kennel. However I had not done my homework in terms of what I was
getting into in buying a husky. In the end we just went and bought
her from a gentlemen who was advertising in our local paper. She was
papered (Continental Kennel Club) but I was more interested in the dog,
not how many medals it can win. When we got her she was already 12
weeks old, and I was worried that because she was already so old would she
be a good choice. Another teacher at my school who owns dogs and
knows quite a bit about them told me that I might be better off with a dog
of her age because if the owner had children then she might be acclimated
to them and be a better socialized dog. He said that when I go to
see her, that I should try and get her to roll over on her back and if she
does then that means she is submissive. This was important, I didn't
want a mean dog. She did, and so we took her home.
Thus began our long relationship with a mental patient in
the form of a dog.
She was an inside dog for as long as a day I think before
she destroyed my wife's shoes, my cell phone, my wife's glasses and various
remote controls and stuffed animals. We were definitely not
prepared. She became an inside-outside dog. Our backyard has a
pool with a wrought iron fence about five feet tall that separates the pool
deck from the grass and she slept on the patio. That was how it was
supposed to work anyways. Sierra decided that she should have the full
backyard so she learned how to squeeze into the pool area and began to dig
holes and eat our sago palm. She ate our patio post (Note to self,
repair those before the patio falls on me), and dug more holes and ate through
the fence. My wife would scream at her and she nicknamed her, the
beast. Sierra is a talker to, she woo, woo's, growls, barks, yelps
and is basically a noisy maniac. I diagnosed her with severe ADHD,
but since I have no Ritalin, I just spike her water with some Jack Daniels
whenever I get the chance ;)
That was our summer, I did take her for walks everyday and
that was fun, she didn't want to walk straight, left, right, stop, go,
examining every little thing. My leash for her kept getting smaller and
smaller, it wasn't until the winter in December when we were passing by
the local junior college that things turned even crazier!
This is Bear. My wife and I were passing by the
local Junior College when we spotted the Animal shelter with dogs for
adoption out front. My wife and I wanted a companion dog for Sierra
and we saw a litter of what appeared to be dogs similar to the RCA dog if
any one remembers that one. We stopped to see, but before we got to
them my wife noticed a Siberian in a small cage. I ran over to see
him and he looked so sad. His head was down, I took him out, he was
so skinny. They said they had found him wandering near some farm
land. I asked my wife what she thought and she liked him, so we
decided to put it to the test. I went home, got sierra and brought her
back to see how they would hit it off. Sierra went right at him,
barking, wooing, talking, and he lit up. They started playing,
wrestling, tails up, ears forward, it was love. So for 60.00 dollars
we adopted him. We were deciding on a name, I liked names like
Dakota and such, but there was something very huggable about him, like a
teddy bear, and thus we named him bear.
He couldn't be more different than sierra, he is calm,
laid back, the vet says he thinks he may only be a a few months older than
sierra but he acts like he is a lot older.
I figured out soon enough that this did not translate to
him being any less of a problem. You see Bear as I have found out is
the brains of the outfit. I came home one day and found Bear in the
neighbors back yard. He had Sierra chew through a fence plank
and then he squeezed through. I found him back there and then
proceeded to chase him all over the back yard. He leapt in the air,
swerved and reminded me of Pepe Le Pew from the Looney toons
cartoons.
How did I know it was Sierra and not Bear who chewed
through the fence? Well when I put the fence back together I hid
around the corner and the dogs went to work. I peeked and saw Bear
standing there while Sierra did all the work. He also had them
digging holes under the fence to try and escape. I put a piece of
wood in the hole (very heavy) to block them and when I hid again, I saw
Bear and Sierra each grab one end and pull that piece of wood out of the
hole. He is the Brains and she is the brawn I guess.
As many of you may know I decided to start taking the dogs on a more
serious exercise excursion. I bought a tug line set up and tied it
around the area of my bike where the handlebars meet the frame. It
stretches out about 5 feet into a Y-shape where I attach to two x-back
harnesses. The dogs are also harnessed to each other at the
neck. I have had them pulling me for about two weeks now. Our
first week was pretty fun, the dogs pulled me the normal way we go and we
go flying down one of the main roads, really fast and furious. The
problem occurs when we get into the country around the corner. There
are squirrels everywhere and this makes the dogs turn suddenly at the drop
of a hat. I also had a big Rot run up on us, it seems his owner was
jogging out there without him on a leash and thought he could just use the
force to control his dog. After some time the dog managed to go back
to his owner, while I tried with all my might to hold the dogs back.
I eventually got into a crash when the dogs saw a squirrel in front turned
and I had to stop the bike. The dogs lurched forward causing the
back end to come up and me to go over the handlebars, the pedals caught
the my calf's and tore me up pretty good. I am know on an alternate
route but it has its own problems. We have to deal with bugs flying
into my mouth, everyone deciding to walk their dog at the same time as
mine and cars flying by us at light speed.
The worst though is my dogs themselves. Sierra is the female so naturally
she wants to squat and pee in the grass, while bear wants to pee on the
bushes, these things are on either side of the sidewalk so the dogs while
trying to reach these areas, inadvertently keep each other going in a
straight line. However occasionally sierra wins or bear wins.
So I have to stop, weight, zig, then zag, then stop, then wait and after
awhile it defeats the purpose. I have got onto SIBERNET and asked
several times as to how I can get the dogs to not cross each other or
swerve, but I have got no answer. They get tangled up this way and
it makes me have to stop and untangle them. Lastly I think they are
still dealing with some dominance issues, Sierra wants to be the lead dog
and she will get bear by the neck if e tries to get in front of her, but
yet he is my pull dog, he does all the work! So the verdict is still
up in the air in terms of how these dogs are doing at this whole pulling
thing.
New Pics from
the Mountains!!!
Here we are at the General Sherman Tree. Sorry about the resolution,
but my wife's camera is not that good.
Here we are getting ready to climb on top of this big rock. There
was actually a really good pose here that the dogs gave but unfortunately
the batteries ran out on the digital camera.
Some Gallery Shots!!
       
       
       
 
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