By RACHEL SAUER
The Daily Sentinel
So, he takes off like a, well, not like a shot, exactly. Or a rocket. Maybe a missile? A very slow-moving, kind of lazy missile on an unpredictable, zig-zag course. A scent-seeking missile. You never saw such a dog for sniffing all the things.
Anyway, Harley is ready for his walk.
He knows the routine. Maybe he can even tell time, you never know with dogs. But come 4:30, he’s loitering by the front door, casting pointed looks at it, then glancing back at his person.
That’s Kent Hartung.
Kent’s 87, Harley’s about 5. They’ve been together since Harley was a puppy, when Kent’s daughter, Jackie, brought Harley home for Kent’s great-grandson. But as is the way of things, Harley ended up adopting Kent.
“You ready for your walk?” Kent asks his pal, whose tail fans a skritch-skritch-skritch over the gray living room carpet on which his round bum is plunked. Take that as a yes.
Kent bends to fasten a collar around Harley’s thick neck, then clip a long, becoming-frayed leash to the collar. He pushes open the screen door and Harley doesn’t exactly zoom out, but he definitely has ideas about where he wants to go, and going in general.
He heads out, his legs working a steady, metronome pace and his body, thick like a bale of hay, bobbing in ba-dum ba-dum rhythm. He pauses at the sidewalk on the edge of Grand Avenue, the traffic on North 28th Street loudly zipping past nearby, and crosses the street.
“Oh, we’re going this way?” Kent asks, then confides, “I just let him go wherever he wants and follow him around.”
In between sniffing every little thing, Harley frequently glances back at Kent. Yep, still there at the other end of the leash, his best person.
This is their third walk of the day, of every day. The first walk: very early, about 5, 5:30 in the morning. Kent is an early riser, always has been, but sometimes Harley is still asleep when Kent’s eyes open and he thinks, “Oh, well, maybe I’ll sleep a little more.” And that’s usually the exact moment Harley wakes up, so off they go, into the dark of a drowsy morning, through phosphorescent splashes of yellow streetlight.
It’s so silent on the first walk, the streets are theirs, there is almost a reverence to it, and in the summer they watch the sun rise all gold and pink.
Second walk is around 9, 9:30 — it’s before it gets too hot in summer and after the bitterness has thawed in winter — and sometimes it’s a path similar to the first walk, sometimes it isn’t. Harley decides.
Third walk is the evening walk, say 4:30 or 5, and Harley is crossing a gravel lot, heading in the direction of the frontage road beside the Interstate 70 Business Loop.
Sniff. Sniff sniff. You’d think he is part bloodhound, but nope, a lab and collie mix, Kent figures Harley’s probably between 80 and 90 pounds. A bit of a plump black sausage, that Harley, a big boy with a tuxedo-like swath of white from his neck to his belly.
Harley spots a patch of juniper bushes and gives them a sniff. And what’s this? Shade? His very favorite thing!
Plop.
Down go his haunches and he looks up at Kent, his pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.
“OK, Harley,” Kent says, “that’s a good boy. Come on now.”
He is a good boy, and Kent should know. Kent’s always had dogs. Before Harley it was a cocker spaniel, another one that Jackie brought home, such a comfort when Miriam got sick.
His Miriam. She died eight years ago, but they were married 57, almost 58 years, you know.
It was 1949, he was several years home from Guam and the U.S. Navy — enlisted at 16, still not sure why his mother agreed to sign the papers — and he and his buddies were heading to a dance in Meeker.
Kent thought maybe he should stop to pick up a gal he’d kind of been seeing, but then they met up with Miriam, who was supposed to be his buddy’s date. There was no spark, though, so Kent said, “I’ll go with her.” Three weeks later, they were married.
Six children — and some heartbreak, two of them died — and much joy. Grandkids, great-grandkids. A life lived. They moved from Craig to Grand Junction to escape the cold, eventually selling the double-wide to buy the house on Grand Avenue.
And always, there was a dog, sometimes several. Like ol’ Harley.
Good ol’ Harley, who does a little business on the occasional bush or weed, and continues his desultory path down the frontage road. He zigs across the road to sniff a bag, then zags back to cut through a parking lot. Kent calmly follows. Harley meanders up the sidewalk in front of The Glass Brokerage, flopping onto his side on the front doormat, then rolling to his back, doing a little cha-cha-cha like he’s got an itch to scratch.
Then he’s up and sticking his head around the corner of the Glass Brokerage’s open shop door.
“Sometimes there’s a dog in there, and they’re friends,” Kent explains. But no canine friend today, so Harley’s off across the parking lot, navigating the narrow space between two trucks even though it would have been easier to go around.
Fortunately, Kent doesn’t mind a meandering path. He just likes walking. When he hurt his back so bad, way back in the ’70s, and was off work for three months, doctor said best thing for him was walking. So he did. It still hurts him some, and he bends forward at the waist a little.
When he and Harley are home, Kent mostly stretches out on a blanket on the floor, steadily working through the stack of Westerns he replenishes at the library every week. Harley’s dish is near, so he has a nibble then naps while Kent reads. If they’re feeling frisky, Kent tosses a tennis ball down the hall, and Harley only sporadically gives the ball back to Kent.
Same thing on their walks. Sometimes Harley finds a stick and carries it around for a while, never offering it up to be thrown, hiding it if he finds a good spot.
Also, Harley has his friends in the neighborhood. There’s the little black and white dog in a kennel behind the apartments on North 22nd Street, and Harley will stop for a visit. There are the two little dogs walked by the man in possum belly overalls, but they’re on a different walk schedule now.
If the dogs are the barky, yippy kind, ones that rush the fence in a frenzy as Harley and Kent walk by, why, Harley just ignores them, maybe offering a sidelong glance.
“He’s real friendly, but he’s only interested in other friendly dogs,” Kent says.
In fact, Harley will cross the street to avoid unfriendly dogs, or to check out something he maybe hasn’t sniffed for a while, or because he feels like it. “He goes back and forth, back and forth like a sewing machine,” Kent says.
And when the days warm up and he spots some shade? Plop. Right onto his side for a luxurious wallow, while Kent stands holding the leash. Because he sunburns so easily, Kent is always in a long-sleeve plaid shirt and jeans, a Petty Construction cap perched on his head.
“But Harley’s got that ol’ black fur, so it’s real hot for him,” Kent explains sympathetically while his dog lolls in the shade on someone else’s lawn.
Soon enough, Harley gets up and indicates it is time to head back home. Jackie’s probably home from work, Kent’s great-grandson home from school, the shadows are getting long and Harley knows there’s a bowl of ice water waiting for him in the kitchen.
So, Kent and Harley go their way past familiar sights in the neighborhood, watching the sun blaze through the sky, watching the season change, not minding the days and years passing, heading home together.