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"Taka"
by Amanda Byrd
Taka, my first dog, was the one that got me into skijoring, in fact he started my obsession with sled dogs. Not knowing how to ski, he pulled me along and knew at about every 1/4 mile on the mark I would lose my balance and fall. He would wait patiently for me to get back up and pull again at his slow, but steady pace. This describes Taka in daily life. He was a relaxed, methodical dog. I would let him out of the cabin in the morning and he would sit and watch the squirrels. It was his calm, even tempered demeanor that touched every person he met.
We grew together from the day I got him. Answering an ad on a message board I met Taka, back then his name was Tucker. The name struck me as negative so I searched for a new name, and found that the word Taka meant 'To come together' in Raratongan. It was such an appropriate name, we had come together. We melded into a duo, we went everywhere together - parties, hikes, and he came to work with me. He would lay silent in my office where no dogs were allowed. After about an hour he would start making loud sighing noises. They were so loud that all of my co-workers in their cubicles would laugh and come and lavish Taka with pats. He had many friends and he was the cool guy, The Fonz. We called him Pierre Kerbis - Pierre because he was suave and Kerbis because his nick name was Pumpkin Face, (kerbis in German means pumpkin.)
Being the competitive person that I am we entered every skijor race we could - only, Taka would decide at the final moments of the countdown, during an enormous pee, whether he would in fact run that day. More often than not he did decide to run, and the other times he would take one giant leap into the deep snow and lay there rolling around. When we did run Taka ran just as fast as he thought was needed. I think we still hold a record of a 13 minute mile.
We had many adventures out to cabins with lots of other skijorers. Taka was the tortoise - slow and steady. He would start at a strong trot and 15 miles later he would be doing that same pace, never tiring.
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