Denver was our purebred Siberian Husky sired by our other purebred Siberian Husky London and Born February 14th 2007.

Although it happened more than 2 years ago and I started writing this post almost right away, it’s taken me this long to decide to finish it and make it public. Even now finishing the last little bits it’s difficult for me to get through. He would have turned 9 today.

On January 3rd 2014 Denver was hit by a car traveling on Route 56 in the Adirondacks. I have no way of knowing for sure but from the injuries my assumption is that he died instantly. It’s an incredibly sad and unfortunate turn of events but I am thankful we have some closure. It didn’t start out that way, after realizing he was missing we searched for hours. Eventually the person from the DOT that found him, got in touch with someone who knew we had huskies, and they got in touch with us. Telling the kids was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. Delilah grasped what was happening right away but Reece just hugged us and couldn’t understand why we were so sad.

When I think back to the last few days and weeks Denver enjoyed though, it makes me smile.

We hadn’t bought the dogs toys in a while, but for christmas we got Denver a fox with a christmas hat on it and a squeaker in each end and he was beside himself. We got London an identical raccoon and he couldn’t care less. Denver destroyed all 4 squeakers and couldn’t have been more excited while doing it. He always did. A squeaking toy never lasted more than 24hrs in our house once he joined the family.

On top of that in the few weeks before he was hit we had him groomed, got him a new nametag and let him sleep on the bed at camp. We had been grooming him (and London) ourselves for years but we had a coupon for 50% off a grooming appointment and we had both of them done. they looked better than they had in years and Denver in particular almost seemed proud of his new look. Seriously, he was literally strutting.

Denver was a funny dog. He would try to bury bones in the winter time but because the ground was frozen he would scratch it and just kind of push little bits of dirt (and sometimes snow) on top of the bone. In the morning time if he had to go outside he would jump on top of the bed, stand over us and just stare down at us until we woke up.

Like most huskies he liked to howl and talk. You could ask him “where’s London?” and he would go nuts howling.

When we got married we were gone for 2 weeks on our honeymoon and Denver missed us so much that when we got home he tackled Rachel and knocked her over, whining and crying the whole time.

Denver had a wild side too, he seemed closer to the wild than any other dog I’ve had. I got to see a whole different side of him when he investigated a porcupine in the woods at camp and ended up with 57 quills in his mouth. I Rode in the back of our truck trying to keep him calm while a friend of ours drove us hurriedly to the closest open vet (about 25 miles away). Eventually it seemed like he thought I was hurting him and so he tried lashing out at me but I was able to keep him calm long enough for us to arrive and get him a tranquilizer. When we brought him back he was the happiest dog alive.

I’m gonna miss that crazy lanky husky.

We love you buddy.