🍯 MAIN DETAILS 🍯

Name:

Melina

Meaning(s) of Name:

"Honey" or "Sweet As Honey"

Age:

2/3 years (about the same as Aleu and Kodi)

Gender:

Female

Type:

Dog

Breed:

Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever

Occupation:

Hunting/Duck Tolling

Place of Residence:

In a cabin in the woods on the outskirts of Nome, Alaska

Preferred Voice Actor/Actress:

Tara Strong

🍯 PHYSICAL APPEARANCE 🍯

Main Fur Appearance:

Medium Length, Chestnut Brown

Fur Markings:

White markings on her face, chest, belly, paws and tail tip.

Ears and eyelids are a darker shade brown.

Eye Colour:

Golden Brown

Size:

Medium sized - perhaps the size of Jenna but definitely smaller than Aleu or Dusty

 🍯 RELATIONSHIPS 🍯

Parents:

Unknown

Siblings:

Unknown

Mate:

Conan (will link his profile once uploaded)

Friends:

She had a strong friendship with Aleu before she left to join the wolf pack. She is friends with most of the young dogs in Nome such as Kodi and most of Balto and Jenna's pups, Dusty, Kirby, Ralph, etc. Kirby has a crush on her but she doesn't really notice him that way.

Enemies:

Melina doesn't have any enemies at this stage because of her social & mostly upbeat personality. Although Boris has grown to dislike her a bit due to her tolling occupation.

🍯 PERSONALITY 🍯

Standout Traits:

She is highly sociable, bright and fun to be around. She is intelligent and an encounter with her is usually hard to forget due to her eloquence and unique appearance. 

Likes/Desires:

She enjoys meeting with other young dogs and can be seen as a bit of social butterfly. Surprisingly, even though she is quite popular, she is very unprejudiced and is usually warm in her approach to most. She is very active and enjoys running in the snow especially & swimming at the beach. She was bred for hunting small game & birds and enjoys doing it with her owner. An activity she enjoys with her friends is giving old Boris a good jump-scare now and then by barking or jumping at him. She and her mate Conan would enjoy an occasional hunt together in the woods as well.

🍯 BACKGROUND 🍯

Early Life

Melina wasn't born in Nome. She was raised by her owner in their previous hometown in Anchorage since she was 8 weeks old. She has no recollection of her parents or siblings - only that she came from a strong lineage of duck tollers. She and her owner moved to a cabin on the outskirts of Nome when she was just about 1 year old.

First Encounters with Balto Characters

On one of her first visits to Nome, Melina had her first experience with Balto's family. She was waiting for her owner to finish getting supplies at the store, when she spotted a snow goose waddling down the street. This immediately sent her jumping at the opportunity to make her catch for the day, and the goose squaked in terror. In what felt like an instant, a huge, snarling creature that looked like a wolf jumped in between her and her prize. Melina was shocked to see a wolf out in the open in the middle of a town, never mind the fact this wolf was defending a goose! When Melina questioned the intentions of this 'wolf', they introduced themself as Aleu, daughter of Balto and Jenna, and warned her that this particular goose, named Boris, was in fact a close friend of Balto himself who was not to be toyed with. Melina immediately ceased her pursuit of Boris and apologized, for she had heard of the heroic deeds of Balto and had no intention of harming any friend of his. Although initially offended at Melina's assumption that she was a wolf, Aleu quickly accepted her apology and they both realized after talking a few minutes that they were the same age. This was the start of Melina and Aleu's friendship.

Melina & Aleu's Friendship

Melina and Aleu were close and hung out whenever Melina was available to - they made many happy memories together. Melina was the only dog-friend in town who tried to be sympathetic of Aleu's painful ordeal of being part wolf. Even through their close friendship, Aleu still found it hard to fit in whenever Melina would try and bring her along to any gathering with other young dogs in town. Melina was always defending Aleu where others were misunderstanding her.  This sometimes resulted in Melina begin torn between Aleu and other young dog friends. When Aleu left to join the wolf pack, Melina was saddened, but quickly moved on for she had many friends in Nome.

Meeting Conan

Months after Aleu had left, Melina had an encounter that would change her life forever. One day when she and her owner were out hunting in the woods as usual, Melina picked up an unusual scent. As she investigated, she stumbled upon an injured wolfdog lying in a clearing. The wolfdog was unconscious, so Melina signalled to her owner and they took it back to their cabin. When the wolfdog woke up, he immediately acted hostile towards Melina and her owner. Although offended by his ungrateful behaviour towards her and her helpful human, she was forgiving as she sensed he had been though a lot. Melina felt that there was something intriguing about this wolfdog, and that he reminded her a little of her friend Aleu with his bright blue eyes and wolf-like stature. She tried to explain to him that she and her human were merely trying to help him and eventually he let his guard down and stopped rebelling against their attempts at feeding him and tending to his wounds.

The wolfdog later introduced himself as Conan and went on to explain that he had ran away from his pack some distance away. Conan ran away due to facing much condemnation from some of his fellow pack members due for being part dog. His mother, Neriah, was a husky who eloped with a wolf and joined their pack. He had also heard of another wolf pack that was led by a wolfdog, and had hoped to find them on his journey and perhaps join them. Melina realized immediately that he must be talking about Aleu's pack and told him that she knew the leader of this pack. Conan was pleased to hear that Melina knew of this pack and then asked her to help him locate them once he has recovered. Melina agreed to him help despite not knowing exactly where Aleu and her pack of wolves could be living. Although Melina didn't know the whereabouts of Aleu and her pack, she knew someone who did - the one and only Balto!

Melina & Conan's Relationship

Melina came up with a plan to help Conan appeal to Balto and convince him to guide Conan to Aleu's pack. Once Conan was fit to travel again, she took him to Balto's shipwreck hideout to talk with him. When they asked Balto of Aleu's whereabouts, he was more than happy to point them in the right direction, but he was not willing to make the treacherous journey once again and he wasn't even a hundred percent sure of their exact location. Although the pair were a bit disappointed, they understood where Balto was coming from and left with the consolidation that they at least had some information to go by.

Conan then decided to make the journey without Balto's company. Melina then realized deep inside herself that she was scared of losing Conan. Although she had initially supressed it, Melina had developed intense feelings for Conan during the time she had spent caring for him. Conan of course shared these feelings for her and he asked her to run away with him. This troubled Melina, even though she couldn't stand the thought of not being with him and the idea of seeing her friend Aleu again excited her a bit. She had a good life in Nome that she just couldn't leave behind, so, she decided not to go with him. Conan was dismayed due to this, but he didn't hold it against her and then left for his journey.

In the days after Conan's departure, Melina was heartbroken and questioned her decision over and over in her head. She was in love with Conan and wasn't sure how she was going to move on. Her friends all noticed how downcast she was and none of their attempts to cheer her up really worked. Poor Kirby, who was crushing hard on her at this stage, grew wildly jealous of this 'Conan' and became obsessed with winning her over. She took no notice of his attempts to capture her heart, because all she could think about was Conan.

About a week after Conan left, he returned to Nome to Melina's surprise and delight. He emotionally explained how he never should have left and he realized that he had already found where he belonged, and that was with her. Melina's owner recognized Conan and decided to adopt him as his own dog when he came to realize the bond shared between him and Melina. Now, they live happily in their cabin in the woods on the outskirts of Nome.

🍯 RELATION TO BALTO 🍯

As mentioned before, Melina has many relationships and interactions with Balto characters, including Balto himself. See 'Relationship' and 'Background' sections for more info.

The images were done by myself on ibisPaint X. Please do not use them or this character without my permission. I worked really hard on drawing and developing this character. Thanks for reading!