By Peter Hurley
When I first met Duke, he was a spindly, long-legged pup with one ear up and one ear down, black with white accents, looking more like a foal than a pup – really a strange looking dog – a “Texas cur” it turns out…
My friend fostered dogs up in Denver. She called me one day – seemed she had this dog “that just wasn’t going to make it in Denver” and asked if I would be willing to take him on, “down there”.
Apparently, Duke and his fellow litter of pups had escaped from a ranch in east Texas and ran amok for a few months before being captured by the local animal control. The owner was identified but refused to pay the bounty for the four pups so they were put into a Texas “kill” shelter.
From there they were transferred into a large van with several other miscreants and driven up to an adoption shelter in Greeley Colorado. (Duke hated vehicles, vans in particular, for the rest of his life). Duke’s brothers and sisters were adopted one by one until there was only Duke left behind and unwanted.
This is where my friend comes in. She snatches pups from shelters like these and “matches” them with her mostly “well to do” brethren in the big city. But Duke was a different dog. He avoided human contact mostly, appearing to study you, looking for angles and possibilities of escape, an incorrigible inmate with boundless energy. He would seek out other dogs and lead them to mischief. Coupled with his ungainly looks he was not a fit for the Denver boujee crowd.
So, I took him on. Our interaction began immediately as I drove him down to Pagosa in my pickup truck. I talked to him the whole way. He was quiet, both non-moving and with a steady assessing gaze at me as I laid out exactly how it was going to be. For, of course, I had my preconceived notions of what our relationship would be having never been actually responsible directly, always around dogs but never directly responsible….
I was going to be the master in complete control, and he was going to dutifully follow me around in a subservient role.
Two early incidents stand out vividly in my mind as he immediately set me straight.
The first, we were walking around our neighborhood block and as we returned, he ambled down to the fencing that surrounded my leaching pond, that is, the collection of my house’s “grey” water after first passing through my septic tank which of course was my “black” water otherwise known as… well, you get the picture.
My eyes widened as I realized he was going for the pond. I shouted his name. “DUKE!..NO stop right there….Absolutely NOT!”… He calmly looked back, hesitated for just a moment, and I swear smirked and leapt right smack in the middle of the effluent, swam at his leisure as I yelled and stomped around the perimeter, finally emerged and proceeded to do the dog shake close enough to my vicinity to share the loveliness of his experience while I sputtered furiously….
Second, another of our early morning walks as I was barking commands to satisfy myself that I was in control, we passed a neighbor’s house who had his garage door open just slightly from the bottom where his cat sat peering out at us from the bottom of the driveway.
Midsentence of one of my complete control commands, Duke shot like a missile down the driveway, ran the said cat under the doors and followed her through the dog doors in my neighbor’s once tranquil abode. His two dogs went ballistic, the cat’s shrieking, his kid is yelling and wife screaming as I hear the clatter of mayhem circling around the windows and finally out the front door with my neighbor, in his bathrobe swatting at him with a broom… I locked eyes with my neighbor, as he shook his head and exclaimed “What the F—”.
I came to the painful conclusion that I had no control… none…. And at the same exact instant a single thought came to my mortified mind…. “ “How long do these Fn things live??”…
But slowly we forged a relationship. It took a ton of patience and some tough love, but slowly Duke had me trained… He never wavered from his part of the deal. He was going to be a dog, and I was going to learn to deal with it. Like all solid relationships, we built trust between us and we prospered and persevered. We were both staunchly independent. He loved our activities together, hiking, back-country skiing, fishing, etc. but when the day was done, I went to my bedroom and he went outside. He only slept in the house on bone chilling winter days. Most nights (and days) were spent outside either in specially concocted roosts or chasing the sun.
A decade passed. The town changed and with that the neighborhood changed. New people moved in with their specially groomed labradoodles and whatnots… tightly controlled by leashes and barked commands. But even then, Duke persevered. The neighborhood learned to embrace this “free” dog, and he was allowed to visit, get snacks and even in some circumstances, was allowed a chair within to take a nap. And so, we continued on in relative peace.
And then a mysterious lump formed on his head, in March of 2025.
“Probably cancerous” was the opinion of the veterinarian, but not operable as it was perched on his brain. “Best to let it alone” until he is feeling the pain – 3 to 6 months was the prognosis. Duke continued his activities, hiking, skiing, fishing etc. as the lump grew…
And then it happened…
One day as Duke was lying on the road following the sun and greeting passersby… a concerned citizen (not of the neighborhood but simply in the neighborhood for a walk) noticed the lump and apparently sent a picture to a vet friend who diagnosed it as a possible snake bite… (in December…?)
So the nightmare began…
Read Part Two… on Monday…