Duke, boy dog

I saw him on the local Humane Society's website two weeks before Christmas, a beautiful black and tan German Shepherd called Duke, available for adoption, and I hurried there to get him before he could get away. When I drove up, the sound of barking was unlike anything I had ever heard. Scores of dogs all barking at the same time. The din was almost unbearable. I walked over to the fenced-in area for adult dogs where the barking, playing, fighting dogs were romping, and there sat one dog in the midst of all that chaos as serene as could be.  My first thought was that if anyone could get along with Gretta, my nervous Shepherd at home, he could. When I called his name, he stood up and came to me at the fence. I caressed his head through the chain links. He licked my fingers and looked into my eyes.

He had the most beautiful face I have ever seen. There was one scar on his nose, suggesting hard  times, but he had the biggest, deepest, brownest eyes in that noble head that there could be. I immediately went inside and completed the paperwork to adopt him. It turned out that he had been abandoned when his owners pulled out their mobile home in the middle of the night, absconding, leaving behind Duke and a horse. We rode home with Duke standing in the back of the Jeep right behind me sniffing my hair. So beautiful in appearance and disposition was he that I had him for almost a week before I realized that his legs were somewhat bent and crooked.  Most likely the result of malnutrition in his puppyhood, the vet said.

Duke acted like a guest in my house for two weeks. He didn't seem to realize that this was his home, his house, his yard, his car. But after two weeks, he began to settle in and take possession of the place and of me and Gretta. He became our protector and guardian. Once Gretta slipped out the front door and ran down to the road. I looked at Duke and said, "Go get Gretta," and he took off running to her and herded her back to the house. He clearly loved her and wanted to protect her. He even tried to talk to her, making a sound that sounded like nothing so much as a donkey braying. As he realized that this was home, his delight became apparent. He loved his house. His Jeep. The back yard. Dog biscuits. He loved everything. I have never seen a person or animal as happy with his world as Duke was.

Except thunder. Duke did not love thunder. Whenever there was a storm, he wanted the whole family to go upstairs to the master bedroom to join him so that he could ride out the storm on his bed. He would not go alone. He would come to me, then turn and run to the foyer to the foot of the stairs and wait, and then come back and do it again, like Lassie trying to lead Timmie somewhere. I usually gave in and gave him his wish and we would all trudge upstairs to wait out the thunder and lightning. Gretta of course barked at each thunderclap, but in time even she learned to be peaceful upstairs in the bedroom all together.

Duke loved my mother, and she loved him. When she visited, she loved to work in my yard, and he always sat nearby watching the work proceed. In the evenings he lay at her feet while she read. My front porch ran the whole width of the house and Mom would try to exercise Duke by going onto the porch with him and saying, "Run, run, run!" And believe it or not, that dog would run back and forth from one end of the porch to the other for her.

Duke and my mom

Duke had separation anxiety. I learned this the hard way. After the holidays, when classes started again, I left Duke and Gretta together free in the house. That first day when I got home, I pulled the car into the garage and entered the house through the kitchen. There was sofa stuffing on the kitchen floor. All over the kitchen floor! I walked into the breakfast room, where there was even more sofa stuffing. I braced myself and continued on into the living room. The devastation was complete. The sofa was dead. Gretta had never touched anything when left at home alone. It had to be Duke. I took him back to the Humane Society to give him back. I simply couldn't afford this dog. But when I got there I just drove past and came home with him still in the back of the Jeep. Three times I left the house to go and give him back, and three times I couldn't turn into the Humane Society's parking lot. So Duke and Gretta had to be separated when they were home alone, and Duke had to spend his days in the garage, which was a very nice heated room with a window, or go to work with me. In the garage, I'd give him  cardboard boxes to tear up and he would, so I'd give him the pieces to tear up some more. He would, and he was happy.

One night four years later, a sound awakened me at around 1:30 am. I sat up and turned on the light. Duke was on his bed in convulsions, having a seizure. His toenails were hitting a chest of drawers and that was the sound that woke me. "Duke," I cried and jumped out of bed and put my body over his to protect him from hurting himself as he thrashed about. Finally, the seizure ended and for a few moments, Duke lay still. Then he got up and ran from the room, running into the door jamb on his way out. I called his name and though he came back to me, something was very strange about him. It took me a while to realize that he had lost part of his vision. I called our vet's emergency number and told her all that had happened, but she said only to bring him in first thing in the morning.

No one in our town knew what to make of it when seizures had effects that lingered after the seizures were over. Each time Duke had a seizure, he lost more of himself, so I arranged to take him to the Veterinary School at North Carolina State University at Raleigh. I boarded Gretta, and Duke and I set out on I-40 for a six-hour trip. We got as far as the Guilford College exit at Greensboro when Duke began to have another seizure in the back of the Jeep. I'll spare you all the details, but thank God for cell phones. There turned out to be a specialty vet hospital at that very exit that had a board certified neurologist. It was clear that Duke wasn't going to make it to Raleigh so that is where we went. We called ahead so the wonderful staff was expecting him. They came out with a gurney, for now his back legs were paralyzed, and carried him quickly inside. His care began immediately with a phenobarbitol drip to prevent any further seizures.

Well, you probably already know what happened. I was told that the testing had shown that no matter what was done for Duke, he would never regain his sight or the use of his legs. We never learned the cause of the seizures. I had to let him go. I sat with him and talked him out of this world saying all of his favorite sayings, telling him he was a good boy, that we were going home. I only had him four years and he was very young. I cried so much my mom considered slapping me. Well, the only thing to do was to go home, get Gretta out of boarding and bury my face in her fur.