Hi! My name is Jana, owner and operator of PAWS Healing Hearts. I’ll start with a short background on myself and then move into the good stuff.
Since I was a child, wolves were always my favorite animal. All kids have one, right? I can’t even remember what color my walls were because they were covered in wolf posters and figurines that I had collected over the years. After graduating college and moving from California to Montana, I knew that I was ready to finally get the one dog that looked the most like a wolf… the Siberian Husky. A lot of people thought I was crazy and to be perfectly honest… I kind of was. If you know anything about huskies, you know that they are a very, VERY high maintenance breed that require a lot of attention, exercise and training… but that didn’t stop me from pursuing my husky adventure, finding the perfect little fur ball and spending 12 amazing years with him.
Here I am now, 15 years later, with TWO high maintenance fur babies! It has been quite the uphill battle since we brought home Echo, our now 3 year old purebred Siberian Husky. Working from home made it a lot easier to raise him, but we did end up putting him through a very extensive behavior modification training program with Endless PAWSibilities Dog Training who specialize in high risk dogs. It made a world of difference once we got him into training and when we were ready to find a companion for Echo, we knew that we wanted it to be another husky of course!
Every time I think about our girl, Skye, I constantly remind myself how absolutely lucky we were to find her. We had put out feelers and met with a husky rescue who brought over a male husky mix to meet our family and unfortunately we were not the right family for him, so the rescue offered to bring over another husky mix, but a female, and I was hesitant because I had only ever had male dogs, but we went for it.
Skye is a precious soul who had been through the worst first year of her life. She was surrendered by her family due to contracting Demodex (skin infection) and they were unable to take care of her. She lost most of her fur and was severely malnourished. The rescue took her in, resolved the skin infection and when her fur was mostly grown back (but patchy) they put her up for adoption… but she was looked over because she was not your typical “pretty husky” due to the condition of her fur. She also still had a lot of weight to gain, so it broke my heart hearing that people skipped over her… but at the same time, I’m glad that they did because we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to welcome her to our family.
After 18 months of unconditional love, her undercoat came back completely and she is no longer malnourished. She has also proven to be one of the absolute best dogs EVER. She is the sweetest girl (why I call her sweet baby or sweetie Skye) and she is also one of the calmest huskies I’ve ever experienced.
I didn’t realize, until early 2023, that Skye was not only special… but she was the perfect candidate to become a Therapy Dog. My best friends daughter quickly became her favorite girl and the way Skye would care, love and bring peace to her girl made me realize that I needed to share her love with others. So we started her Service/Therapy Dog Training at the end of May 2023 with the same company who trained Echo and my job now is to not only share her love with those who need it, but also share her journey with those who can’t experience her amazing ability to make people feel cherished.
Make sure to check out “Our Mission” and of course enjoy following along Skye’s journey as she enters the Therapy Dog world.
