SBA Toubousha Haiyou Shimas MacLeod

"Wicket"

Pictured at 10 months X2!

Pitcured above at 8 months

Wicket's puppihood below (7 months to newborn), pictures supplied by SBA!

Why that name?  The literal translation is Fugitive Wearing Stripes!  We call her Wicket because she looked like one as a puppy so that is what her breeder nicknamed her!

When Wicket arrived at Akitas de MacLeod, she was 8 months old.  She was very skittish and did not seem to be adapting well from her former life in a pen to her new found comfort of living inside the home.  She was snappy and was difficult to catch as she would try to hide from us, although she appeared to like us and was especially fond of Kabuto. 

On the 6th day of being a MacLeod family member, Wicket went outside with on lead with Kabuto and Katana and Charlie.  During the process, she was able to somehow break her choker and took off running.  Charlie made chase but was no match for this girl!  She didn't know her name and was very leery, all of which made it that much more difficult to get her back. 

We looked for hours and no one had seen her at all as it seemed she vanished into thin air!  We put up flyers and spoke with Animal Control, the local police department, the fire department across the street, dog walkers, and anyone outside living in the general vicinity as we walked around looking for her.  

The next morning, one of the ladies we had spoken with said Wicket was in her yard.  We went quickly to go get her and tried to corner her in, but to no avail.  Again, she made chase.  Charlie chased for several blocks, with help from strangers to slow her down along the way, but she was still way to fast and way too skittish to be caught.  We were so depressed that we missed our chance to get her back!  For the next 5 days, we had evening sightings of Wicket as she would come back to our yard but wouldn't get caught.  We even set up a trap and put out her crate and baited her with food but nothing worked but at least she knew how to get home, that much we were sure of!  We hoped, as she got more hungry as time went by, she would lose energy and become weaker and thus, easier to catch.  That night we got our first and only phone call of a sighting from our signs but an hour had passed between the sighting and them calling us.  We began fearing that we would never catch her because she was just too skittish! 

For the next four, very long days, there were no sightings, no calls, NOTHING!  We feared, even more now, that she had been hit by a car or had a run in with a group of coyotes!  I decided to check back with Animal Control to make sure that they hadn't forgotten about me and my missing dog!  However, Animal Control was sure that they didn't have her because we had emailed them 4 pictures of her from various angles, just in case! 

The next morning I got a call from Animal Control, asking if I had found my dog.  I answered a quick "no" and then was told "I didn't think so, I'm pretty sure we have her here!"  Wicket had been picked up the night before (my birthday) by Animal Control when a local called her in as a dog at large.  I went to happily pay my "Dog at Large" ticket fee and get back my girl!!! 

But WAIT, there's more!  I brought her home, so thankful to have her back but knowing there was a long road ahead of me because if she was that skittish before, a week and a half in the wild couldn't have done her any good.  After some bonding time, I gave her a bath to get the mud off of her and the stink of the pound!  And then I see it!!!!!!  Her vulva was swollen.....now it all made sense.  Wicket had taken off because she was in an unfamiliar place when she started her very first heat cycle -she must have been terrified!  Naturally, we assumed that she was probably impregnated during her joy run by some random stray that hopefully didn't have any diseases.  We waited and waited to see signs of pregnancy going back and forth about whether or not she was pregnant!  Luckily she WAS NOT :-)

AKC Pedigree: