We saw this guy outside a cafe on Polk Street and were bowled over by his sheer awesomeness. Is he a dog? A bear? A Scottish Highland cow? A Scottish Highland dogbearcow? We asked his owner, and it turns out that he’s an Alaskan Malamute. He didn’t look like any Malamute we’d ever seen in our lives, and initially, I didn’t think he could be purebred. Turns out, he *is* a Malamute, but has a particular genetic mutation that causes extra floofliness.
Just look at the amount of fluff on this fine specimen. Imagine combing him out. Think of how many kitschy, ugly Christmas sweaters your Great Aunt Mary could knit from that. Then imagine the smell whenever you go out in the rain wearing one.
An awesome dog, indeed. Second picture after the break.
Edit: His mom found our little blog, and his name is Mishka! Which is a name that tends to get attached to cute little teddy bears in Russia. How appropriate! (Now ask how I know this: I took Russian in high school, and it’s one of the very few things that stuck in my head.)
Here we see the elusive Wooly Mala-Mammoth in its native habitat.
No! Surely this is the exceedingly rare doggerpillar!
Pingback: Dog of the Day: Mishka the Alaskan Malamute « The Dogs of San Francisco
This is my dog Mishka! Thank you for your post! He is starting to get old and his glory days are far behind him now. It’s so nice that someone captured him at his prime. You were right–it’s the same malamute in both of your posts.
A child portrait photographer took this of Mishka for free because he thought Mishka looked so beautiful:
/Users/lindageballe/Desktop/photos/Geballe/Gedalle026.jpg
(unlike in one of your photos where Mishka had just come from swimming in Crissy Field, he is clean and dry and this one)
Oh, that’s awesome that you found his pictures!
If you want to upload a picture and share it with other people on the web, here’s a good way to do it:
1) Go to http://imgur.com/
2) In the upper right corner, there’s a button that says ‘Computer’ under a heading that says ‘Upload Images’. Click it.
3) It will put up a ‘choose a file’ dialog box. Go find the file. If you aren’t sure where the file is, but have the picture up in iPhoto, you can actually just drag the image from the thumbnail view in iPhoto over to that dialog box and drop it in there, and it will select the right file for you. When you’ve found the file, either double-click it, or select it and click ‘Choose’. That should close the dialog box.
4) Click ‘Start Upload’
5) The picture should appear, and to the right of it a whole bunch of lines of text with headings. If you just find the heading ‘Image Link’, just under it there should be a line starting with http:// that is the link to your file.
You can also make an account on imgur, which gives you a little more control over what happens with your pictures.
Anyway, please do give Mishka a hug for me. I remember him well, despite having taken pictures of literally thousands of dogs, and whether his glory days are behind him or not, I still think he is an awesome dog.
Opps, the photo didn’t show up! Not sure how to post a photo. If you send me your email, I’ll send you the photo.
Hopefully, we’ll run into you again!