TRUE AKITAS OF LOVE--Author wishes to remain anonymous, but this is a true story of the unbelievable love Akitas  can give. 

A little pre-story information.   I adopted my daughter Chris after being her foster parent for 5 years.  She came to me at 15 months having already had a fractured skull and a broken arm ... done by a sibling was the story ... she was failure to thrive, could not even sit up by herself, obviously couldn't even crawl anywhere ... and she was born with spinal bifada and the prognosis was that she would likely never walk or toilettrain ... oh and they also believed her to be moderately retarded.

Here is what Akita love can do ...

My two Akitas had never been around kids much and the first night Chris was in the house, Tonka moved into her bedroom and never moved out.  Chris had been so badly neglected/abused it was nearly two years before we heard her make a sound as she'd learned if you were quiet people might not notice you. Which meant she would sit all day in a wet or dirty diaper and never make a sound, she didn't play and she wouldn't reach for anything...ever.  When she'd wake up, she'd lay in bed until you went to her, so if it hadn't been for Tonka I would never have known when she was awake or wet or dirty ...but that boy was the best mother ever and he didn't tolerate his baby in wet or dirty diapers.  And by golly when that child was awake he wanted her outof bed and on the floor where he could take care of her.

Her legs had atrophied because she had not gotten the PT she needed after her spinal surgery (at 2 days of age) but Tonka didn't know about atrophy, he just knew he wanted his kid moving.  She wanted nothing to do with me or John at first, but she bonded with Tonka almost immediately.  He started out laying beside her on the floor and then when she started clinging to him and his collar, he started inching along on his belly.  Within two months she was crawling.  We went to a neighbor's house and Tonka swam with Chris,towing her across the pool.  We went for walks and ... he hated the stroller,so I put his harness on him and she rode Tonk ... first one of us would hold her on him as we walked, but then she learned about balance and holding on with her little hands, then she started using her legs to grip.  She was so little she rode him pretty much everywhere we went that would take a service dog (now there's a show stopper on the street).  I guess it's no surprise she took her first steps hanging on to Tonka's collar.   And nobodywas prouder of their child than that Akita.  By the time  Chris was 28 months, she was walking with assistance and by the time she was 3 he had her running.  She started playing soccer when she was nearly 5 and I don't know who found the practices more stressful ... me or Tonka because he wasn't on the field with her.  The first time she got knocked down, he dragged me the entire length of the field to get to her and was really annoyed because Icouldn't run fast enough.  We were so protective.

 Never sick a day in his life, Tonka had his 10th birthday physical and blood work when Chris was 6 and the vet said "I wish I was this healthy".... and two weeks later he got deathly ill one night and went immediately went into shock.  An emergency exploratory surgery found him riddled with cancer.  I don't know why nothing showed up in the physical but I am grateful that he was sick for less than 24 hours.  He was inoperable and we euthanized him immediately.  I thought I'd torn out my heart.  We were heartbroken but Chris was devastated by the lost of her first and best friend.   Today, 11 years later, Chris keeps his ashes in her room with a picture of the two of them together.  Never has anyone made such a difference in a child's life.

What he did for our family I cannot begin to describe.

Interesting aside ... Echo was Tonka's daughter and we always referred to her as our "idiot child" because she'd been sllllllooooooooooowwwww to potty train and even slower to teach anything else.  I'd never met a more witless dog.  She acted like a jumbo toy poodle -- it's the only way I can describe it.  No brain activity.  The day Tonka died, Echo moved into Chris 's room and it was like she took off the idiot mask and became an Akita overnight.

She wasn't Tonka but she grieved with Kris and helped her work through the tremendous loss of her first and best friend.   Five years later Echo told us she was ready to join her dad and it was time to say goodbye. 

Not our first Akitas, not our last, not famous show dogs,  but Tonka and Echo were what Akitas are all about.  And that's why I'll do rescue.  I owe them.

       NICHOLAS

I've been hesitating about sharing this news, but so many of you have shared
your love
and support for our sweet boy, and you deserve to know.

Nicholas passed away last week, peacefully and at home. He was calm and
comfortable
in the end, and helped in the last little bit of his journey by some of his
favorite people.

He had an old and damaged body, and even as his spirit and soul healed, his
physical form weakened. Over the course of a few hours, his organs started shutting down, and he decided that it was his time to go. We kept him on narcotics over the last few hours, so he was in no discomfort. After Nicholas passed on, Michael and I took his body for a last long ride out to the country, to the same funeral home that prepared Sumo's ashes for us.

We knew when we took him in that his time with us would be brief. Nicholas was
with us for 23 months, far longer than we hoped, and far shorter than we wanted. I
can't begin to tell you all the gifts he gave us during that time, or all that we learned from having him in our lives. Somehow Nicholas developed a complete faith in all other creatures, that no one meant him any harm, which was astounding. He seemed to take pleasure in almost everything, from smelling tomato plants to watching bugs on a log, from the morning ritual of our pack snuggle to the night-time ritual of drinking a glass of milk with dad.

He was an incredibly patient, gentle, and sweet old soul, and Michael and I are
very much at peace with his death. We are still numb, still grieving, about the loss of
his life, though. After all this time of planning around Nicholas, we are not sure how to organize our days. And part of our sadness is that, although we did our best for him in dying, we couldn't fix what happened to him in life. Because, really, if Nicholas' faith in humans was true, then we wouldn't have known him at all. That's the thought makes us more sad than anything else.

I know that we are not alone in our loss, and that it's been a difficult week
for Akita friends. But there is comfort for me in being part of this loving and
supportive community. No one else would understand our mixed emotions right now. But I do smile when I think of Nicholas marking his territory on the Rainbow Bridge.

Melanie, November 2007

Akita Adopters Yahoo Group--with permission