Neeko was my first show dog. I arranged to purchase her long before she was born, before the breeding even took place, and looked forward to her arrival with much anticipation. When I visited the newborn pups, there were several that caught my eye but it was never Neeko. I knew nothing about picking pups and had done my homework this time. "Let the breeder pick," was the advice in the books so I did. Neeko was very pretty but also very quiet and very serious. My preference was for her feisty, energetic siblings but she was "the best" for show purposes. And so, Neeko came home.

It took some time for me to warm up to Neeko; she was just so darn serious. It didn't help her puppiness that I went into obedience training right away with her, taking her to sanction matches when she was just four months old and qualifying! I was eager to try the new "food reward" training method that was all the rage, and it worked well for Neeko. All the while, there were the frantic calls to the breeder; "Her head's too small," "Her body's too big," "She has no coat," "She has too much coat." I don't know how they tolerated it. We went to handling class. We went to sanction matches, hundreds of them, in an effort to learn this new sport. And we learned together. And all the while, Neeko grew and matured and blossomed.

I took her finally to real dog shows and she completed her Canadian Championship fairly quickly, considering that neither of us really knew what we were doing. She completed her Companion Dog Title in three trials straight, but it was getting difficult to keep her enthusiasm up. She was getting bored with all this training. So, we started agility training in hopes of finding the spark again. In no time at all, she was running perfect scores again and again and again. In the meantime, she tried her paw at motherhood and it turned out she was pretty good at that, too. And as we spent more and more time together, I began to understand her quiet nature and appreciate it more.

You see, she was much wiser than I. She knew when to give her all and she knew when it didn't matter. She knew how to pick her fights when they counted, but to never lose her temper. Keep a cool head. Analyze your odds. Never take on more than you can accomplish well. Good lessons for us all.

I decided to take Neeko to flyball practice as just one more thing to do together rather than a serious intent to play flyball with her. You see, Neeko could be quite dog aggressive and flyball is full of crazy barking dogs running around off leash. They also have to pass straight into the face of the returning or outgoing dog and I didn't think my nerves could stand it. Well, she learned that game in no time flat, playing with the same precision she had always shown in her other efforts. Neeko played flyball for almost three years without ever having an incident with another dog. Even when a dog from the opposing team crossed over into her lane, she never batted an eye. She would run over them, around them or through them but she was finishing what she started out to do and that was all there was to it.

Neeko also had a movie career. Her most notable production was "Almost Golden", the Jessica Savitch story, which was a fairly highly acclaimed "made for TV" movie. Jessica Savitch actually had a Siberian Husky but there were some scenes where the dog needed to be off leash in the city and they couldn't find a Siberian that would reliably stick around. If you get a chance to see this movie and wonder who the beautiful malamute is, that's my girl. She also did some photo shoots and a Halls commercial. Her picture even showed up on a beer bottle label!

When I found out she had ovarian cancer, I had her spayed immediately. The biopsy showed a type of cancer that hardly ever spreads so we were optimistic that we had got it in time and she would be fine. But it was not meant to be. Two more operations plus chemo bought us two more healthy years, and we spent those years doing the things we loved to do together; obedience, agility, flyball, backpacking, long walks in the woods, cuddling together on the bed, and saying a quiet "thank you" for each day.

Neeko has been gone for several years now and I still think about her every day. She is here in my dogs, little bits of her in every single dog I have. But most of all, she is here in my heart.