Written by Angela Harrison and professional photography by Strike A Pose Photography
Spook is our soul boy who ghosted into our yard one morning after a terrible storm. He was skinny and had a metal chain around his neck that he kept choking himself with. He had no microchip and no one was looking for him. This snow-white dog quickly stole our hearts.
We had sadly lost our female, Akita, to cancer about a-year-and-a-half before. Spook seemed right at home immediately, running to greet us as soon as we arrived home, walking alongside the car to make sure we got out safely when leaving. He simply has to be a part of everything you’re doing, from going out (he tries to get in the van on every occasion) to when we are hugging (he gets up to join in the hug). If we’re gardening, he pops his head in between your legs so he can see what you are doing.
In many ways he reminds us of our Akita girl. We were in bed one evening watching TV and he casually walked straight up onto the bed and turned around to watch it with us. This was something our Akita used to do with us. Spook always wants to be the centre of attention. And he makes his presence very much known: as I was walking to the car one evening he grabbed my hand gently – this, too, was a quirk of our Akita girl.
He doesn’t like to sleep inside and we’ve tried many times to let him sleep next to us, but he prefers the great outdoors. Just don’t think this is an uneventful thing; we often wake up in the morning to find him snoozing on the outside table, or purposefully sitting in the middle of the garden while it’s raining, with him enjoying the shower.
Spook has lots energy. Thankfully we have a large plot that he loves running around in, getting into every mischievous thing he can find. His favourites are going for a swim in the dam, chasing birds, digging very narrow deep holes, and adding exciting new finds to his stash of collected items.
From the moment Spook appeared in our lives, we couldn’t imagine a day without him.
Spook’s MuttMix results:
Level 2 German Shepherd Dog
Level 3 Alaskan Malamute
Level 4 Siberian Husky
Dominique from MuttMix says…
Spook is quite an interesting case in that he looks primarily like a German Shepherd Dog (GSD) but with the obvious lack of normal colouring/markings. All three of the breeds found in his DNA do, however, have occurrences of being all white. He is also larger than a standard GSD, which can be explained by the Alaskan Malamute, who were bred for their strength and size.
All of the breeds found are high energy, extremely intelligent, curious, very protective and love to swim, which I’m certain make for interesting times in the household!
Spook with his beloved human dad, Riaan Hickley
