Gunner

When I was eight years old, my parents bought a four year old rottweiler. When we went to pick the dog up, the owner let me hold the leash. The rotty never tried to pull me or runaway; he was the gentlest animal my young being had ever come into contact with. Gunner was trained by his owner to be extremely obedient, he would sit, lie down, and stay for however long you told him too. He let me dress him up in a wedding veil one time and would gently wrestle with me. You were also able to walk him with no leash and he would never leave your side.

When we moved to camp it was undetermined whether we could keep Gunner or not. The caretaker's cottage was a very narrow building, rectangular in shape. It was painted a sage green, making it look like a huge celery stick. The president of camp at that time did allow us to keep Gunner and for that my parents and I were very thankful. My mother had always had a dog and I had never lived without one that I could remember. Soon Gunner changed the stereotypical mean reputation of rottweilers world wide for the people at camp. He became the unofficial mascot of camp and everyone loved him.

The ongoing joke at camp is that it takes two hours to get from destination A to destination B. It's true. In this case when walking with Gunner both young and old campers alike would stop and visit with Gunner. He loved it. His people skills, whatever they were before he came to us, were multiplied tenfold during his years at camp with us.

When we first moved to camp and nobody knew Gunner yet, one of the camp members met him in an unorthodox way. It was the fall season and nobody was staying at camp. Wayne Poglitsch was fixing something under a sink in a cottage and he left the front door open. Next thing you know, Wayne turns around and sees a one hundred and fifteen pound rottweiler sitting right behind him, staring. Wayne recalls later "I didn't know what to do, where he cam from or who the dog belonged to. But man he scared me bad!" Wayne and Gunner became very good friends after they met each other officially.

Another time, our old pastor Dave Watkins, was working in a trench in the same season. He and Gunner had known each other for a while now and I think Dave was one of Gunner's favorite people. Dave happened to leave the shovel by his truck when Gunner came by to say hi. Dave told Gunner to get the shovel for him not expecting anything to come of it. Next thing Dave knows Gunner is dragging the shovel over to him!

There are very many fond memories of Gunner and the life he shared with us. To make it short and sweet the day Gunner died it rained and a beautiful rainbow appeared over the CT River. There are many pictures of this famous rainbow, unfortunately the one shown here is a different one.