Every year, Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine’s annual Adventure Critter Pet Photo Contest, sponsored by Dominion RiverRock, calls to our critter-loving readers to send in their top adventure photos with their furry friends. Our inbox is flooded with inspiring images of pets—furry, feathered, spiked, and scaley—who love to go outside and play across the Blue Ridge and beyond. After receiving hundreds of submissions and thousands of votes between the finalists, we’re excited to showcase this year’s winner.
This year’s runner-up is camping-aficionado Charles and his photo by Lauren Griffin!
First place goes to Shelia K. Haga, who submitted an image of her adopted Siberian Husky, Sascie, enjoying the sunset at Whitetop Mountain in Virginia’s Mount Rogers National Recreation Area.
We asked Shelia and Sascie to tell us more about their adventures together and the journey into each other’s lives.
BRO: How does it feel to be the winner of the Adventure Critters Pet Photo Contest?
Sascie: I am so honored to be named winner of the Adventure Critter Pet Photo Contest sponsored by Blue Ridge Outdoors. Momma says I will milk it for all its worth, with my beautiful blue eyes, lying on my cushy bed, eating my dehydrated minnows and salmon treats, while momma tends to my royal floof.
BRO: How did you and Sascie come into each other’s lives, and what inspired her name?
Shelia: I broke my ankle in 2012 and was told I may never walk properly again. After healing, that inspired me to prove my doctors wrong, so I found my healing in the woods and on the trails. I lost my hiking partners, Samme on September 5, 2023, and Clover on October 16, 2023, after almost 14 years together. I was so heartbroken and distraught and found myself slipping into a black hole. I was missing them so bad and our hikes together that I could not breathe or function. So, I began my search for another hiking partner.
Of course, I struggled with the guilt of feeling that I was replacing my former dogs. I had volunteered with a husky rescue for several years and absolutely fell in love with the breed. I told everyone that once I lost my guys, I wanted a husky. I had scheduled a meeting with a shelter to go look at a dog I seen online that I wanted to meet, but it was not a husky. In my heart I was so conflicted as I knew I wanted a husky. A couple days before I was to go, I was scrolling and seen Sascie (fka Jassy) on a husky rescue site I support and fairly close to where I live and asked how old she was.
I was definitely not interested in adopting a puppy as I am getting older. I was immediately told she was mine. I giggled and told her I was just curious as to how old she was. I made the decision to go look at and meet her and when the rescue owner brought her out, she came directly to me, like she had known me her entire life. The rest is history. I cried driving her home. She went for about 2 weeks with the name the rescue had given her, but it just did not fit her. Me, my kids and my dogs’ names all start with a “S” or a “C”, so I toyed with those type of names. I wanted an Alaskan name for her, but none sat well with me. So, I thought Sassy, but did not like the spelling, it was boring, so I changed it to Sascie as it sounded similar to Jassy and here she is.
BRO: What’s the most adventurous thing about Sascie?
Shelia: Laughing, being a husky, everything is adventurous about Sascie. She has escaped 4 or 5 times, but she always goes to the same area, and I have a tried and true way to catch her. Luckily, after being spayed, she is not such an escape artist. Her random zoomie moments at some of the craziest times are a sight to behold and can be quite hilarious. She play bows smacking her front paws on the ground and sticks her rear in in the air, fakes to the right and fakes to the left and takes off like a fighter jet.
BRO: Where are your and Sascie’s favorite places to go outside and play together? Any memories that stand out?
Shelia: Sascie and I love to section hike the Appalachian Trail, and we are so blessed to live in an area of Virginia that the A.T. runs through. I have only had Sascie a little over a year, so we have a lot of area to cover. We have plans to hike Carver’s Gap and Roan Mountain in Tennessee, the Cascades and McAfee Knob this year and do the Five over 5000 Challenge. This is to hike the five summits here in Southwest Virginia that are over 5000 feet.
We are also hoping to possibly get in all the State Parks in Virginia and become master hikers. Grayson Highlands, Whitetop, and Elk Garden are our go-to places. I do have one memorable moment, but it’s rather embarrassing to tell. We were out hiking on the Virginia Highlands Horse Trail. Mother Nature called, so we stepped off the trail, and she decided to do a zoomie at a moment she should not have, and I ended up in the snow. She loves squirrels too, and there was an incident where she spotted one, and when we got to the tree that it ran to, she climbed the tree. She is such an amazing friend to me.
BRO: Can you tell us more about the photo you submitted?
Shelia: Whitetop is my favorite area to be. Sometimes, my dogs and I will drive up there to watch the sunset and take photos. It is the most beautiful place on Earth. It’s where I feel the closest to my maker and go to clear my head and heart and reorganize my inner being. I laugh, I scream, I cry, I remember, I forget, I release so many emotions. This particular afternoon, we were just sitting there, feeling the breeze, listening to the sounds, and getting lost in the moment. I loved the way the sun just had a soothing aura engulfing her. This is where I had my Samme’s final photos taken and where my Clover and I spent most of time.
BRO: Does Sascie know any unique tricks?
Shelia: Sascie is a very quick subject. She loves to give hammer paw….sometimes when you don’t ask. Laughing! She knows sit, down, speak (she is pretty good at backtalking), paw/shake, and place (which is my favorite). You can get the best photos with this command. We have more to work on.
BRO: What’s something you want people to know about Sascie?
Shelia: Sascie was found as a stray and was discovered while she was giving birth to her second pup behind a dumpster. A Good Samaritan found her, named her Jassy, and reached out to a rescue in the state they were found in, but no rescues had a place for her to go. So, they reached out to Wolf Spirit Sled Dog Rescue in Stuart, Virginia and they said they would take her and her pups.
Sascie was just a pup herself at what they think was just a year of age. As soon as the pups were weaned, they were adopted, and I adopted their momma. She did such an amazing job taking care of Loki and Rua Pua. All of us did DNA tests, and they all came back as blue-eyed/green-eyed, purebred balls of energy, wild and crazy, floof-emitting Siberian huskies. If you can’t embrace their flying-never-ending-floof, silly antics, and boundless energy, get a stuffed one.
BRO: Anything else that you would like to share?
Shelia: Shelters and rescues across the United States are drowning in perfect, lovable, adoptable stray and owner-surrendered dogs, mixed breeds and purebreds, male and female, young and old, short and tall that make excellent walking/hiking partners. Please consider adopting a hiking partner. They make the hiking experience so much better. If it was not for my dogs, there is so much in nature that I would not have been able to see. Their sight, hearing, and sense of smell are incredible. I have learned to watch for their cues and be still in the moment.
”Look to the mountains and there you shall find me, Happy and Free walking with the dogs that love me.”
Cover photo and all others of Sascie the husky by Shelia K. Haga.
