Three-legged dog gives wings to one-armed woman
When the kennel door opened Saturday morning the small husky leapt out, straight into Ruth Nickels' left arm. They tumbled to the ground.
"She's got to have wings," Nickels said ecstatically of the dog she adopted from 2,600 miles away to fill the void left when her right arm was amputated.
That arm was impaled on a metal post in 1990, when Nickels was replacing siding on a cattle shed near Fairbanks. She pulled herself off the feedlot fence she'd fallen on and walked back to the farmhouse, the wound already brewing with antibiotic resistant infections.
"There are things that hurt worse," she now says calmly from her remote cabin in the Chilkat Valley.
The doctor wanted to amputate, but Nickels refused.
"I thought life ended with amputation," she said.
For five years they tried to save the arm. Nickels watched her fingers turn black and come off. The blackness, a bone infection called osteomyelitis, worked its way up to her shoulder. Thirteen operations later in 1995 she left her arm on an operating table.
Nickels was left with a "flipper," a three-inch stub of the limb she once used to aim her police pistol, fix fences and scratch dogs behind the ears.
Life didn't end, but her job on the farm did.
"That was probably the most difficult time of my life, being alone," Nickels said. "I went to the public library in Fairbanks and there wasn't one book, magazine or publication about amputation in the entire library."
Nor were there any other amputees to talk to. Self-conscious about her missing limb, Nickels became socially isolated. After moving from Fairbanks to a cabin 30 miles from Haines, her life centered around her home and garden, two dogs, and the WebTV she used to counsel other amputees.
Her deep wish was to meet another "tripod," as Nickels refers to herself, face-to-face.
"I guess we all look for people we have something in common with, and amputation from trauma or disease is one of those things," Nickels said.
Three weeks ago she received a computer from Elkshelp, an organization that lends specialized technology to handicapped people. Soon after a message appeared in her e-mail box from Animal Rescue newsgroup. At 60 kilobytes in size, it was the kind of unsolicited mail she would normally just delete. Her Web TV would have been too slow to even open it, but her new computer did it with a quick click.
And there was Sierra, a white and black Siberian husky standing on three legs.
"I said, 'Hey, wait a minute. That dog's missing a leg,'" Nickels said. And then came the realization. "She's got to come here."
That realization reverberated over the Internet, from Haines to Kris Jackson of Greater Dayton Siberian Husky Rescue in Ohio, who posted the notice about Sierra in an attempt to save the husky's life. From Jackson to Lorri Hare, manager of the shelter where Sierra awaited her fate. And from Hare to the Kentucky farm where Sierra had lived most of her life.
"It just broke me up. I couldn't believe something that good had happened to her," cattle farmer Mike Sherrell said.
Sierra grew up with the Sherrells' son on their farm and it was there she lost her front left leg in a car accident six years ago. Being a tripod didn't stop her from bounding through the fields with the Sherrells' son as he trained for high school track or riding in the back of the pickup.
"She was here with me every day, here on the farm," Mike said. "She's just a good dog and a sweet lady."
He would have kept Sierra, but in March a neighbor tried to kill her with poisoned hot dogs. Since she was no longer safe at home the Sherrells decided to take her to the Bowling Green-Warren County Humane Society.
Normally a 10-year-old dog doesn't stand a chance in a crowded shelter, particularly a dog with only three legs. The Bowling Green shelter had to euthanize 36 dogs two weeks ago and 19 last week, but shelter manager Lorri Hare assured Mike Sherrell she'd do what she could for Sierra.
"There really wasn't ever a doubt in my mind once I met her and her personality that she would find a home," Hare said. "She is one of the most well-behaved dogs that we've ever had here at the shelter."
As Sherrell drove away he prayed for Sierra. She had to find a home before her turn was up on death row. Hare e-mailed Jackson in Ohio. Jackson found an Internet listing for disabled pets and typed in Sierra's vitals.
Somehow Nickels' wish, Sherrells' prayer and the electronic messages collided. Saturday Sierra landed in Haines after a three-day voyage.
"It's been sort of a series of coincidences and the more you learn the more it fits in perfectly," Ruth said, "like a glove."
A left-handed glove holding a right-legged leash.
For Nickels, Sierra is more than a dog. Sierra is a right arm, the one that will push open doors Nickels has been frightened to go through. With Sierra in the lead, Nickels said she is ready to start going to community events in Haines, to potlucks or plays. She plans to take Sierra into the schools. In Motion, the national magazine of the Amputee Coalition of America, has asked Nickels to write a story about Operation Sierra.
"Already today I've probably had more social exposure than I've had in the last six months just because of meeting her," Nickels said. "A couple people have asked me if they can bring children out here tomorrow."
Sierra wobbles when she walks and sometimes falls over. Then she hops back up as if nothing happened. Watching her, Nickels feels less embarrassed by her own unsteady gait.
"If she can hop along, I can hop along," Nickels said. "Whereas yesterday I might have thought, 'Well, I don't want to go to town, they'll all look at me,' now I know they'll look at her instead."
Kristan Hutchison can be reached at khutchison@juneauempire.com.