IABCA NatCh Shivermaw of the Ebon Blade

“Mint”

Mint was born on September 20, 2022, and was bred by us under our registered Tamaskan Dog kennel, Tamaskans of the Ebon Blade, here in Texas, USA. She is from our first ever Tamaskan Dog litter, The Frostbrood of the Ebon Blade, which had 9 total puppies (5 females and 4 males). The litter theme was based on several of the undead Frost Wyrms in the lore from World of Warcraft. Mint’s sire is Booker at Team Warren, who is a mid-distance bred Alaskan Husky who has been a member of a working sledding kennel his whole life. Booker was approved by the Tamaskan Dog Register to be an Outcross Dog for the Tamaskan Dog breed in order to bring fresh genetics to our breed’s small gene pool. Mint’s dam is our girl Sylvaen Tarth “Reckless,” who is a 1st generation Tamaskan Dog and is also an F4 34% low content wolfdog.

Mint has an extremely affectionate personality and can oftentimes be quite silly and playful. She has a little bit of “only child energy” and likes to try to be the center of attention in our household, although she also enjoys playing with the other dogs in our household, too! If she thinks she’s not getting enough attention, she likes to climb into our laps and offer her paw until we give her our full attention. She sleeps on my bed at night and loves to fall asleep while getting belly rubs. Her favorite toys are soft stuffies that squeak, and she’s very careful not to shred her toys, unlike most of our other dogs! Mint loves the water and will jump in our 6 ft x 2 ft round stock tank every chance she gets, as well as play with the hose stream while we fill up water buckets and tubs.

Mint enjoys outings at the park and pet stores, but isn’t a huge fan of super crowded spaces like outdoor markets or festivals. We live quite far out in the countryside and it’s very irregular for us to get visitors (once a year or less), so she can be barky on the rare occasion that someone visits us. However, she does fine in public and is polite towards strangers, although she does prefer women over most men. She gives her all when we ask her to try something new and looks to us for direction. She is highly intelligent and LOVES to learn and will pick up on new concepts quickly with little repetition. Crate and potty-training Mint was very easy - she was always the quietest of her siblings when we first started introducing the litter to crates. Similarly to her stuffies, she is also very easy on dog beds, so she’s allowed to sleep with a nice fluffy bed in her crate. Even though Mint has been raised with two of her littermate sisters, she doesn’t show any signs of Littermate Syndrome and can easily enjoy solo trips and training sessions.

Mint has a fairly high prey drive and will chase small animals if given the opportunity. Since there are no legal places to let our dogs off leash in public where we live, we don’t focus super heavily on off-leash recall, but she does pretty well with recalling on a long-line. We don’t allow Mint to have contact with small animals, but she is cautiously respectful around large livestock (horses, cows, goats, etc.) and doesn’t try to chase or harass them.

Mint has an energy level that would best be described as on the higher side of moderate. She’s not going to be bouncing off the walls if we miss our daily exercise, but she does get clingy and insistent about getting attention on those occasions, so we make sure to focus more on “brain games” training indoors during bad weather. She definitely loves to sprint around in the yard with our other dogs, and she is FAST! I’m positive that she would absolutely love FastCAT and dryland mushing, which we’ll hopefully be able to get involved with soon. She usually feels satisfied with a good 2-hour romp a day in the yard with our other dogs, chasing each other around, jumping in and out of the stock tank, and play-wrestling. When we go on walks at the park, it’s usually 2-3 miles and we allow our dogs to sniff as we go, so it’s not really a power-walk, it’s more of a meander; allowing Mint to “check the mail” on her walks seems to satisfy her need for exercise and mental enrichment at the same time.

We’ve only seen very casual “unserious” resource guarding from Mint regarding toys - she may growl a bit if she has a favorite toy, but ultimately has no issues with sharing her toys with our other dogs. We almost always have a bucket of senior diet kibble available for our indoor dogs to snack on, and she has no issues sharing this, as well. Mint has never resource guarded any toys or food from us, and will allow us to take and hold raw food for her to chomp on without issue.

Mint doesn’t exactly love visits to the vet, but she looks to us for reassurance and remains very easily handled. She has never needed any kind of sedation or muzzling to get through veterinary procedures and can be picked up/manipulated by vet staff without issue. Mint is polite and patient for grooming (we do it ourselves) and can be brushed, bathed, blow dried, and have her nails clipped, all without issue.

While I do want to continue selecting for more of an overtly friendly temperament in our Tamaskan Dog line (vs politely aloof), I feel that Mint’s personality has a lot to offer the next generations of our breeding program. Her affectionate, silly, and earnest nature makes her a very special girl!

Mint is 25.5 inches tall at the shoulder and weighs 60 lbs.