Our house was broken into shortly after we moved in. It was the week of Christmas and we were in Michigan with family. How wonderful. We had talked about getting a dog. We thought we should get a guard dog.
We saw Ana on Petfinder from Hope for Paws. She was rescued from a kill shelter down south. She was listed as an Anatolian shepherd dog. That’s a formidable guard dog that can be as much as 150 lb. She looked like a mix between a German shepherd dog and a corgi. She had a cute lazy ear that she outgrew.
She didn’t get much bigger, which turned out to be perfect for us. She definitely wasn’t an Anatolian shepherd. We were crossing the street one time when she was still young. A little boy said to his mom, look at the big fox. So we often called Ana “the little fox”. We did DNA testing much later and determined that she was Alaskan malamute, American pit bull terrier, Siberian husky, and “supermutt”. We named her Ana for Anatolian.
Ana crossed the rainbow bridge Wednesday 20 May, 2026. She was almost 16 years old. We had to use a Help ‘Em Up harness to help her walk. Her arthritis was pretty bad. We discovered that she had Cushing’s disease later than we would have liked. It was under control with medication. She had signs of dementia.
We loved camping and kayaking with her. However, on the last camping trip, we had to leave her in the camper. No way she could sit in the kayak anymore with her arthritis. We bought a bike trailer for her but didn’t get around to trying it before her arthritis got too bad.
We hope she had joyful life with us. We know we will miss her dearly. I keep thinking about Home by Simply Red.
What’s worth nothing else but love
Take a walk down any street now
Every one of us in our own little world
Looking for a heart with whom to beat now…
‘Cause I long for a feeling of home
Real life, depicted in song
A loving memory
After long, home is a place where I yearn to belong
