Thirteen years ago… We had been looking for a dog for about six months and heard that WAG [Whistler Animals Galore] had a litter of puppies.
I called/emailed and eventually got a call back from WAG’s adoption manager who happened to be an old friend of ours, Jennie Briggar. She said come on in and have a look ASAP! We went in the next day to look at the nine pups.
Losing our minds with the endless cuteness, Kaia stood out as the most independent and a little bit of a runt, so she was my favourite. The pups’ mom (WAG named her Beautiful) was a Husky/Lab etc. Mt. Currie mutt that got hit by a car.
Another [driver] saw her on the side of the road, so they stopped to pick her up and brought her to WAG. Thousands of dollars in surgeries (hips and internal injuries), and the delivery of nine pups later, Beautiful and all her pups were adopted to families in the corridor, North Vancouver and the Island. WAG even set up a group email so the owners could meet up and share updates on the pups and mom.
I remember running into Beautiful and her owners in Whistler one day. Kaia pulled and pulled until I let her loose… [I’ve] never seen a pup so happy. On another occasion, we ran into her much-bigger brother in North Vancouver coming back from a bike ride. The owners warned me that their 115-pound [52 kilogram] dog didn’t like other dogs (Kaia was 70 lbs [31 kg]) but the two of them were rolling around and playing together in less than 10 seconds!
The most interesting part of the story was when we were picking Kaia up to take her home for the first time. Celebrities David Duchovny and Téa Leoni came into WAG with their kids. We told Jennie to tell them the story about Beautiful and the pups! She did… then they cut a huge cheque/donation AND adopted 2 cats! At the time, The X-Files was being filmed in Pemberton. What an amazing thing to do.
Kaia gave us an amazing 12.8 years and we will miss her forever. We wanted to share our story since WAG has been such an amazing organization in Whistler and throughout the Sea to Sky—and so many reading this know an amazing Mount Currie mutt, too.
Please give them all a big hug for us; they are the best ever.
We love you Kaia—rest in peace.
// Pemberton
