To describe Tipper’s story in short, I will quote the words of one of my mum’s primary school students who dedicated a whole school essay to her: “Tipper is a good girl and finds hedgehogs in the bushes. She has a running nose with mucus because she was born with a respiratory disease. For this reason, she was given up for adoption”. For the most curious, more details follow in the art piece below.

My name is Cristina, I originally come from the windy island of Sardinia and moved to Lapland due to my passion for huskies and wild nature. In January 2021, I met Tipper for the very first time when she was only 1.5 years old. I was starting my internship at Bearhill Husky, fitting the context as a zebra in an arctic ice cap. About my first day of work, I just remember a list of dogs to bring to the sled lines and plenty of possibilities to take the wrong ones. Obviously, at my first shot, once I reached Tipper and Hopper’s fence, I took Tipper instead of Hopper. And that is how everything started. That day, I got her mucus stuck to my jacket, but also, I discovered her story.

She was born in April 2019 from two racing sled dogs who had run the Iditarod in Alaska, the longest sled dog competitions of all times. She basically is the daughter of two top-level athletes. Even so, nature has not been very gentle with her and made her the only sick pup of a healthy and strong litter. She was the first of all the siblings to meet the vet due to her breathing difficulties. Constantly underweight, Tipper has always been in the company of a clocked or running nose and reverse sneezing. No X-ray, rhinoscopy or tested mucus samples could clarify what was wrong with this pup that struggled to live. The laboured breathing has always interfered with any activity from playing to running, excluding her from the pack but not from its routine. To Bearhill Husky and its team, it has always been very clear that Tipper could not have become a sled dog. This didn’t stop them from investing in her training as much time, energy and resources dedicated to the other dogs. That training has been her long-lasting present for life. Tipper grew up with the same adaptive mindset, human-oriented receptive approach and equilibrated attitude that characterise all well-trained sledding Alaskan Huskies and Bearhill Husky dogs. She joined puppies’ adventures on the lake, free runs after the ATVs, recalling and command training sessions and even very short sledding rides. She was never left behind, forgotten or abandoned, and her strong and independent charisma proves it.

However, when the rest of the litter was considered ready to start the sledging career, her physical limitations stepped in. That’s exactly why I noticed her above all and naively thought I could have done something for her. After work, I would always save some energy to take her zooming freely on the frozen lake. It was her moment of happiness and my best reward. It became such a routine that Tipper would start howling at me when she would spot me heading to the changing room at the end of the shift. It was like The Little Prince’s friendship with the fox; it seemed she would quote: “For instance, if you come at four in the afternoon, I’ll begin to be happy by three”. It was clear by then that I could never have moved on without her. I adopted Tipper because I thought she needed a home where she could live her life, where being just Tipper, without any connotation, limitation or struggle that the disability could have imposed on her.

At the same time, I questioned myself and all the crew about bringing her to the warm Sardinia, where in August the temperature can reach +40 degrees. I remember Valentijn telling me:“If you take good care of her, she will prove to you she can adapt”. And that is what I have always repeated to myself, even when I had to load her into two consecutive flights. After an insane journey full of challenges, 2 sweated t-shirts, one flight-box full of panic diarrhea to clean with no tools, one call to the vet and 0 ml of pee due to the absence of grass in Rome-Fiumicino Airport, we arrived on the island.

Here, a new chapter of Tipper’s life started. She discovered a passion for hunting lizards, but most important of all, she learned how many different shapes the carbs can have: pizza, gnocchi, lasagna, spaghetti…from that moment on Tipper stopped being underweight and put on a super furry tail. She enjoyed running on the sand dunes, watching the sunset at the beach and having dinner with the grandpas who were always ready to share with her whatever they had on the plate. I was promised she would have adapted, but I just could not have imagined she would have managed so well. She learned the most important words in Italian and that salty water is not good to drink. She got to know that howling to pizza delivery men makes them run away and that kids do not appreciate it if you eat their gelato.

But plot twist, that’s not the happy ending you may expect. Because exactly when everyone could think I had given Tipper a second chance, she gave me my life-saving one. Tipper, in fact, was the absolute only creature to realise that, suddenly, something was not ok with me anymore. When I got sick, she stopped sleeping in my room from one day to another; meanwhile, I was in extreme pain, and all the doctors consulted would neglect any type of abnormality. It took a while before I got diagnosed with a rare chronic disease and even more before the treatments could start giving some results. During the worst period of my life, Tipper was always by my side. She came with me to the hospital every week and howled to me when she would spot me leaving the therapy building. She adjusted her walking rhythm, knowing my energies were low and fragile. She kept calm whenever the side effects of the meds would make me faint in the street, and she would welcome me at home, waving her tail, when I was coming back from invasive analysis or surgeries. She stayed the only constant in a ruined life, the only responsibility I could keep up with, the reason why I would still go out of my home. Tipper was also the one I would look at all those times I was losing hope. When I was searching for models of resilience, strength and power. She taught me I would have found my way to survive, and that together we would have been reborn again.

Now, we are both back at Bearhill Husky, which feels like home for Tipper and to me means the way to take back my life. Tipper is a full-time yard-watcher, while I am employed in the Sales Office, and we both sleep in the same bedroom again. I am not sure if this story is more about care, destiny or reciprocal adoption, but I believe that makes sense to a bunch of unfair things that did not otherwise have. It can teach us that what’s broken can have a new purpose if we just have faith in the resilient power of nature.