Forget his crippling canine deformities -- little General is one lucky dog. In the Alaska of old, his life would have been measured in hours. In the wild, he might have made it a day or two until his mother discovered he couldn't walk.
Cute as a button at birth, General sadly came into the world lacking the use of his front legs. A dog like that is doomed in the natural world, and people living subsistence lifestyles can't afford to sacrifice resources to support a dog unable to work for a living.
General, however, was blessed to be born into the family of Andrea Huisman. When she decided the family couldn't support him, she put an ad on craigslist.com in Fairbanks looking for a responsible family who could.
The ad went viral and the world opened its heart. More than 100 offers to take General in have come from across the country.
"I don't know where people are seeing it,'' Huisman said in a telephone interview Saturday. "It was one little post on Craigslist.''
The one little post stretched across the continent. Offers came from states on the East Coast, West Coast and Midwest. Huisman spent all of her day off Wednesday answering emails and text messages.
When this started, she said, "I thought, 'Who's going to want this puppy?' Now I've got a woman in Phoenix messaging me that she's bawling her eyes out at work.''
General does that to people. He was was born just before Thanksgiving to Scarlett, a dog belonging to Andrea's 12-year-old daughter Ella. The family figured out pretty quickly that General had a deformity.
"We took him to the vet right after he was born, and she said the most humane thing would be really to put him down,'' Andrea said. "Ella was upset. She kept asking questions.
"I said, 'You don't have to decide now.' We took him home and Ella fell in love with him.''
Who wouldn't? Look at General's photo. Not even "Star Wars'' creator George Lucas could dream up a character so cuddly and cute. Anyone who has a heart just wants to wrap their arms around General and hug him.
And his love of life is simply inspirational.
"We have a pretty special puppy that needs to find a home,'' Andrea wrote in that Craigslist ad. "'General' is a pure bred Siberian Husky, black/white with bi-eyes. He was born as a runt, and has some deformity in his front paws. He is missing the ulna bone in each arm and the humerus bone in his left arm is not formed correctly.
"While he is not able to walk, he does a great job of getting around and is not shy about playing rough with his siblings. He is able to stand upright on his back paws which is absolutely adorable!
"He is ten weeks old and is able to get himself up on his back paws and sits. He scoots himself around and can eat and drink without help. House training is slow but progressing. He loves to be with other dogs and will roll around on the floor playing with his siblings. We really wish we could keep him, but with school and working full time, we do not have the ability to give him the adequate time, attention, and money that he will require.''
An emergency room nurse in Fairbanks, Andrea heads a busy household.
"I work full-time,'' she said. "I have four kids. I'm getting a divorce. I live in an apartment. I just don't have the time.''
She was pretty up front about the situation in her ad, noting, "we do not have the ability to give him the adequate time, attention, and money that he will require. We are asking that you write up a short bio about you and your family and how you can best meet General's needs, and then email it to us at huskyhero2015@gmail.com."
The ad was first posted Tuesday. Andrea didn't think she'd get much of a response, but she did. The responses have come like a tidal wave ever since. There were so many she updated the ad to ask for the bios to make it easier to find help in securing a home for General.
"It's kind of bittersweet,'' she said. "I'd like to find a home for him here in Alaska where we could visit.
"I don't know how I'm going to pick, but I got an email from a guy who wanted to adopt who said his daughter had similar deformities. She's the only one so far who's got any kind of handicap.
"She lives in Utah, but she's sort of at the top of my list. I'd love to see General go to her or someone in a wheelchair.''
His lust for life is something to behold, she said. He doesn't seem to know he was born with a handicap. And the way the world is embracing him, he might never know.