As the blizzard of '06 abated and people in our neighborhood appeared on the streets to dig out and walk their pets, Many of them would see me walking our dog and say, "My, your dog must love this weather." In the past, such questions would cause me to mumble some innocuous reply and hurry away but the incessant comments after the blizzard forced me to face the truth about our pet.

You see, my wife and I share our house with a Siberian husky. She is not just a Siberian husky; she is the poster dog for what a Siberian husky should look like. She is solidly built and her black and white coat complements her icy blue eyes. Her name is Dakota. Actually, her full name is Miss Rapid City South Dakota to distinguish her from any huskies from Custer or Pierre. She was a stray that we got from the pound and there was no record of her history, but we had owned a husky in the past, and she was so beautiful that it was love at first sight and we took her home. We never suspected her awful secret.

Our original husky, Gar, was descended from the first huskies to be brought to the lower 48 from the North. His family tree was full of champions and he was regal in bearing and knew he was the alpha dog of our family pack. I cross-country skied with him in harness. He plowed happily through drifts and steadfastly broke trail for me.

He would contentedly lie out in a snowstorm until only his black nose was visible jutting through the snow like a periscope. He would make any musher proud. Dakota looked so much like him that we assumed she was like him in every way. We were wrong.

I was walking her on the Highline Canal when another walker commented on how much Dakota must be enjoying herself. Probably because I had just had to push Dakota from her comfy dog bed and drag her out the door, I had a complete meltdown and just babbled out the awful truth. No, I shouted. She doesn't like the cold and the snow. We don't know her history but we suspect that she was either raised in Arizona or is really a French Poodle wearing a husky disguise. So there. The truth was finally out. As word spread about her, one neighbor even started calling her FiFi.

She would go to the open porch door, stick her nose out into the cold, register a look of distaste, and trot into the bedroom where she was content to lie on the bed and view the piles of snow through the window. In order to get her to go out into the yard at all, my wife had to dig a path for her to use. Dakota would tippy-toe along the path and would refuse to walk through any snow that was not tamped down. Every mutt in our neighborhood loved playing in the snow but we had the only husky in existence who would rather be on a beach in Cabo. It was embarrassing.

We tried every form of reeducation and intervention we could think of. We sat her down and made her watch Eight Below and Snow Dogs. We even bought the Tony Robbins self-help tape for canines, Conquering Your Inner Iditarod. We considered contacting The Dog Whisperer but we figured that since he was based in California, snow training would not be his forte.

One day after the storm, I had dragged Dakota up to the canal and was about to head home when she pointed her nose in the air and sniffed as if she was catching the scent of her wild cousins in far off Yellowstone. Suddenly, she plunged off the path into the thick, knee-deep, unbroken snow. My chest swelled with pride. All our work had paid off. She was truly a snow dog. She stopped suddenly and plunged her head deep into the snow. I knew that when she raised her head back up with snow cascading off her face, she would realize her true nature. She came back up all right and sticking out of her mouth was the sesame seed roll that some creature had abandoned. With the roll hanging out of the corner of her mouth, she trotted past me with a look that said, "Please. Let's get back to our nice warm house so I can have breakfast, preferably in bed." Resigned to accepting her unique nature and the fact that she also was top dog in our pack, I trotted home behind her.