My mom bought my stepdad a wonderful present one day. 
She was working at a restaurant at the beach and looked 
out the window to see a pack of what looked like wolves 
playing in the sand with their humans. She walked out and 
introduced herself to the family and foudn out that it was 
a three generation family of wolf-malamute dogs. At first 
she was intimidated by the size of the grandma-doggy, but 
she soon realized that the lot of them were sweet natured 
animals. She fell in love, and bought one of the puppies. 
    After a few nights of sorrowful howling the puppy 
settled in and became fast friends with our other family 
dog, a sweet girl-dog named Chewie. We had trouble coming 
up with a name for our fluffy silver-white pup, but after 
awhile we decided on Lelu. It didn't take her long to show 
up that she would become the boss. Being wolf as well as 
malamute, she was definitely interesting in making her 
little family part of her pack. When we first got her, a 
lot of people warned us not to keep her because, "Everyone 
knows that malamutes are killers, she'll eat your cats, 
they're mean dogs." She certainly proved them wrong, 
quickly adopted all three of our cats, tagging along 
after them and trying to sleep next to them, whether they 
liked it or not. She became best friends with one of them, 
even going so far as to catch and play with moles and shrews 
with him.
    One week, when she was about a year old she started 
leaving our yard for a long time, and was getting into trouble 
for it too. She would go into the woods and not come back 
for an hour or so, no matter how loud we called for her. We 
noticed that on a couple of occasions she left the yard with 
shrews in her mouth. We decided that she wouldn't be allowed 
to leave the yard anymore. Then, one afternoon my stepdad 
came into my room and asked if I had heard a strange noise 
outside. I told him that I hadn't, and he went outside to 
investigate it. He came back and told me that there was a 
tiny little puppy outside. I ran out with him, and Lelu 
followed us. It took a long time, but finally we caught her 
and brought her back in the house with us. She was dirty 
and scrawny and very thin, you could see all of her ribs 
and hip bones, it was terrible. We fed her and gave her 
water, and tried to get her comfortable. Lelu didn't leave 
that puppy's side the entire time. She kept licking her face, 
    We still have that little puppy, Trixie, who we found 
out had only been about three or four weeks old when Lelu 
saved her life. She treats Lelu like she's her mother. If 
it wasn't for the natural instincts our wonderful mala-wolf 
(as we call her) had, that little puppy wouldn't have 
survived. Even through all the hairballs, rude smells, 
crowded beds, and early morning awakenings, our Lelu is a 
hero-dog we wouldn't give up for all the world.