Whiteshadow Catcher in the Rye CD TD

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 March 6, 1999 - September 15, 2009

Tika made a grand entrance into the world. Our breeder was supposed to whelp our very first litter of puppies. Unfortunately, Yuki’s puppies didn’t want to wait through the 3 hour drive north to Edmonton. Since I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ babies, Paul stayed in the back with Yuki while I drove and warmed up towels on the window defroster as it was -30C outside. Two of the three babies were born in the back of our van. I wanted to call the two girls Vanna White and Carla but Paul vetoed that so we called her Tika! My mom came over every day and did what she did best…..loved and looked after the babies. As a result, Tika became mom’s dog…..

We entered Tika in her first conformation match when she was 4 months old and much to our delight, she ended up taking Best Puppy in Match. However, she decided that she absolutely hated the conformation ring so after we got 4 points on her, we decided not to continue showing her. Instead, she got her obedience title and became a therapy dog.

She was an easy little girl, with a face of a puppy throughout her entire life. She was an incredible caring mother and grandmother. She loved the babies and always went into the whelping box to check up on everybody’s babies and babysit them to give the mamma a break. She still groomed her 7 year old kids right to the very end. You could see that look on Maverick’s face, “Awwww, Mom, do you have to? You’re embarrassing me in front of everybody!”

She had so much heart. This past winter was the first year that Paul started seriously training for dogsledding. Tika ran over 350 km at the age of 10 and was on the team that took Paul over his first finish line for a third place finish in January, a few days before my mom passed away.

Tika was diagnosed with breast cancer in June of this year and unfortunately, it was very aggressive and took her away from us this week. We will really miss our little ray of sunshine.

Happy trails, Tika…..give Mom, Mak and Mickey lots of kisses for us.