Project RePaw: Riffle's story after she met me
My name is Marie, and I came to Bearhill in September 2025 to work as a sled guide.
In my first week of working there, I met Riffle, and it was love at first sight!
At Bearhill, our female dogs wear red collars and our male dogs wear blue collars. One of my first tasks was giving about 20 dogs new collars. Most of them would get super excited when I entered the fence; they wanted to be petted and give kisses. They did not want to stay still for me to change their collars!
And then I entered Riffle’s and Luke’s (Riffle’s best friend) fence.
Riffle immediately stood out to me. She was carefully but happily watching me from a distance and came immediately after I called her. She stood still while I was putting on her beautiful new collar.
I couldn’t say what it was exactly that made me think, “Wow, this dog is amazing!”
But the combination of her sweet behaviour and her eyes blinking at me absolutely did me in right from the start.
Out of 120 dogs, Riffle’s name was the first one I remembered. I knew exactly where she lived, and very unintentionally I always ended up in her fence during lunch breaks and after work.
After a few weeks of us building a connection, I decided to take her home with me for the weekend. I was nervous about how it would go. First time in a car? How was she going to react to being inside a house? Would she be scared? Could I let her off leash, or would she run away?
A lot of possible scenarios went through my head, things that could go wrong.
Here’s how it went: She jumped in the car without hesitation and was dripping saliva all over me during the 10-minute car ride.
Once at the house, I let her meet the other dogs living there and let her off the leash. She came back to me without any problems. Once in my room, she was very confused and a bit stressed at first. After a few hours, she calmed down and took a nap on the floor (that was before she found out how comfy the bed is). No pee or poop inside the house ever, and once she started living with me full-time, she got more and more comfortable exploring the house and meeting my housemates.
Riffle is a very gentle dog, and especially with people, she often needs a while before she approaches them or lets them pet her. She’s incredibly smart, and she always finds a way to tell me what she needs at the moment. And despite being a very adventure-loving and brave dog, she was initially scared of a lot of animals she met (cats, horses, cows, and the worst ones: chickens).
When it came to bringing her home to Germany with me, I was initially concerned about how she would interact with my cat. But it turned out to be absolutely fine, and they tolerate each other!
Her adventurous side got the better of her eventually, though, when I left her with my parents to go on a one-week vacation without her.
She escaped from the garden and ran through every single garden in my town, eventually running to a different town 16 kilometres away from home. No one was able to catch her or even get close to her. My parents were devastated and called me. I ended up booking a flight to go home immediately while thinking the absolute worst.
No one was going to be able to catch her with her shy and careful nature, and no one would outrun an Alaskan Husky going 30 km an hour. I thought she was going to be run over by a car, get shot by hunters, or worse.
After endless searching, I ended up telling my parents to give up searching and just leave the front door open in hopes that she would want to come home on her own.
And to all of our surprise, she did come home. At 5 a.m., after having run probably more than 35 km and being gone for 17 hours, she came home, immediately ate her food, and fell asleep on the couch.
Luckily, all she had were slightly bloody, worn-out paws and a very exhausted body and mind. She recovered quickly, and since then I haven’t left her side.
She is now very well known in my town and has made it very clear that she wants to be taken on vacation…
Now she is travelling with me, my boyfriend, and our van. She gets to be adventurous and explore something new every day, and I’m getting to know her better and better.
She’s more than four thousand kilometres from home right now, and I’m sure she’s going to have a lot of stories to tell her dog buddies once she’s back in Rovaniemi with me for the winter.
Riffle is an absolute BLESSING in my life, and I hope we can explore so much more together.
If you are interested in how the RePaw project started and would like to read more stories about dogs that have found new homes, you can visit the links below:
