Now is probably a good moment to confess that during the pandemic, I became a stalker.
Well, wait: My obsession with a certain large, meaty male actually started at a ninety-nine girlfriends Summer Social in 2019. Sure, the backyard setting at the home of Kit Schon and Penney Stephenson in Portland’s fifth quadrant, North, was lovely. The guests were interesting and conversation was lively.
But from the moment I arrived, it was Akuna who commanded my attention.
“Is he…” I started to guess: Siberian Husky on steroids? Malamute crossed with Shetland pony? I am on the board of the Oregon Humane Society, after all. I know my dog breeds.
“Woolly Mammoth,” said Stephenson.
Of course. I should have known.
In fact, according to his business card, this 6-year-old Alaskan Malamute named Akuna is a model and life coach who has hundreds of friends on Facebook. (Shamelessly, I confess that Facebook has recognized me as one of Akuna’s most loyal followers.) Now that he and his two moms are back in Portland after a 6 ½-month road trip to the East Coast and back, he has fans in every state they visited. In Bar Harbor, Maine, it took Akuna and his humans two and a half hours to walk five blocks, because so many people wanted hugs from him.
“You can’t get far when the Pupparazzi are after you,” a storeowner told Schon.
If, as Stephenson contends, dogs come in small, medium, large and OH MY GOSH THAT’S A BIG DOG, Akuna owns the latter category. It. would be tempting to call 130 pounds his fighting weight, but Akuna never fights. He also never barks, except for an occasional “oof” when he wants to go in or out of the house. He lets children, adults and puppies crawl all over him.
Akuna was three years old when Schon and Stephenson adopted him from a Malamute rescue program in Washington. Every morning, he calmly allows Stephenson to brush his lush silver, black and russet fur. When he smiles (which is almost constantly), the long dark stripe on his nose crinkles in its own expression of joy. Sprawled out on his humans’ back porch, he resembles a canine monarch in playful repose.
As a coach, Akuna offers three life lessons: Smile, slow down and talk to strangers. This peaceable giant, who has never been known to have had a bad day, might also borrow a phrase from “Hakuna Matata,” a song from “The Lion King” that sounds mightily like his own first name.
That phrase? “No worries.”
– Elizabeth Mehren