last november some very generous Friends Of Odin ( FOO! ) bought raffle tickets, entered to win great prizes and helped odin get a new puppy ( the vast majority of the tickets were purchased by long time readers of snowdeal.org most of whom i’ve never met IRL and i am still touched your kindness and generosity. thank you! ). we knew then that we wanted to get another alaskan malamute, but we didn’t know it was going to take this long to bring one home!

but after one unsuccessful breeding attempt and a long 8 week wait, kris went to go pick her up from the breeder near green bay today. she called after getting her and told us she was a veeeeeery cute puppy.

OH!MY!GOSH! she was right!

within moments of jumping out of the car it was clear she and odin are going to be great friends. she went right to him, sat at his feet and looked up as if saying, “ok, i’m here finally let’s go on an adventure!”

odin leaned down and she unleashed a flood of kisses.

odin has A Way with All Animals, but i don’t think i’ve ever seen a puppy so quickly bond with a member of her new family. very fast friends. they will no doubt be inseparable soon.

odin took her for a quick walk around the block so she could get accustomed to the smells of the neighborhood before seeing our yard and the house. she was thirsty after a walk around the block! she’s has a super mellow, curious and affectionate temperment.

and what about a name? in norse mythology odin had two wolf companions geri and freki and continuing in our tradition of giving malamutes names that nobody can pronounce we’re leaning towards naming her freki which is pronounced fray-ki with a bit of a trill. if that doesn’t grow on us odin also had two ravens huginn and muninn and muninn ( meaning “memory” ) is a close second.

i’m sure you’ll see many more accounts of Odin’s Adventures with Freki(?) in the coming weeks.

it is, of course, bittersweet that pushkin didn’t survive to see freki and died just four weeks before we brought her home. he would have done a fine job teaching the house rules.