Versace the Husky
He came into my life like lightning and left a howl on a soft breeze through the stars. He is gone. It was hard. I lost it. Still am. But Luna and I are walking/mushing again and it’s going to be okay. It was all done very well. Brandenburg concerto was playing. He was at peace. He wasn’t in any pain. It was time.
When he was bad, he was a very bad dog — but when he was good, he made hearts flutter with his beauty, bravado, and strength.
The puppy came as a “gift” from the shelter. A gift I hadn’t sought or had time for. We were going through family trauma, and the hope was that he could provide emotional support for the kids. That part proved true. But, trauma did persist — mostly in the form of him destroying pieces of my body, my property, and my sanity.
In 10 plus years he left me with a paralyzed thumb, a ruptured quadricep, piles of medical bills, and more ER visits than I can count. Eventually I started doing field sutures on myself rather than risk insurance taking notice — otherwise they might have forced me to put him down.
And yet, when he wasn’t being a terror, he filled hearts — even strangers. People would gasp at first sight of him (rightly so), often covering their mouths in amazement at his beauty and presence. From the beginning, I knew he’d be a handful. Training never stuck. He would not be tamed. With significant work there were periods when he was marginally domestic, but honestly he was more a creature then pet — a wild one.
In the forest, he seemed to scent bears from miles away and offered no peace until you let him pursue them. Once, off leash, he happily chased and treed a bear. Even at home, he’d lift his nose to the wind, as though he could smell something distant and untamed — something only he could sense.
My strategy for survival was simple: RUN! Six, seven, sometimes eight miles a day. The idea was that if he was exhausted, he wouldn’t break through fences, howl mercilessly or raid food stores endlessly. (He was a world-class food thief.)
He could swallow a medium pizza in one gulp like an anaconda. It is witnessed that once he inhaled a jumbo burrito without chewing. His crowning achievement was swallowing a baseball-sized, tightly packed ball of foil because there may have been a trace of cheese inside. That time, miraculously, he passed it (speculative, no evidence was ever recovered). Later, less lucky, he swallowed a piece of plastic that lodged in his intestine and required surgery (but they x-rayed no foil ball at that time? A mystery). When hunting for food, he moved with ghostly silence, floating on feather paws, striking before it was too late to stop him.
We averaged at least one ER visit for him per year. It was necessary to rotated him through several veterinary hospitals and injuries were sudden, relentless, painful (for him and I)
When he turned one, he was diagnosed with juvenile cataracts. Overnight he went from a dog of the chase to a dog stumbling into walls, from joyful to nearly blind and despondent. Within four weeks his eyes were carpeted over with occlusions. The cost and effort to save his sight were immense. Only a handful of surgeons in the region offered canine cataract surgery at that time. We found one, and the surgery worked. New lenses were implanted, and cloudy parts were removed. His sight was restored! Not long after, I watched him leap and snatch a bird out of the air — not exactly an easy catch.
Speaking of catching, there’s a saying: if your neighbor has a husky, sooner or later you’ll see them running down the street in their underwear chasing it. I’ve been there. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it.
One autumn night, I was camping in a dome tent with the huskies inside (two dog night!). Around midnight, they lunged at a raccoon passing outside the tent wall. Their charges sent us rolling downhill, tent and all, flipping end over end. I was tossed like a rag doll until I managed to grab and calm them. Battered, bruised, but laughing, I had to admit there was something absurdly funny about rolling downhill in a tent with two huskies chasing a raccoon through the fabric. (Note to self: stake the tent next time.)
And yes, perhaps there was a pattern?
Another example, one night at 2 am chaos exploded at the foot of my bed. The dogs had opened the deck door and leapt into the dark after some yet undetermined and unfortunate creature. I charged into the darkness half-asleep, grabbing their collars to break the fracas only to discover they were locked onto a raccoon — now lunging back at us. The first strike landed square on my index finger, clamped deep in its jaws. Standing there in the dark with my finger in a raccoon’s mouth with its teeth deep near my bone, I knew it wasn’t one of my better days. The ER visit and weeks of rabies shots that followed were icing on the cake.
And still, that dog found new ways to outdo himself. One summer midnight my son woke to find Versace lunging at “our cat” who had just entered his room. He scooped the animal up to protect it — only to realize against his bare chest on a hot summer night that the fur felt wrong. Too rough. It wasn’t our tabby at all, but a raccoon that had slipped in through the cat door. His scream as he realized this shook the house. He flung the creature away, and immediately claws skittered across the floor, dogs howling in full pursuit.
I flipped on the lights just in time to see the raccoon tear up the stairs, two huskies hot on its tail. The chase ended at the vaulted ceiling, where the raccoon clung to the curtains. It took a pool net and some stern persuasion to finally uninvite him from the house!
Through all this, Versace did offer big joy, the joy of becoming a musher. When even seven-mile runs could not drained his energy, I researched alternatives (I was honestly desperate). Urban mushing came up: not just running with him but him pull me too! From the first mush, we were hooked.
I’ve skied fast, ridden motorcycles hard, and bombed downhill on skateboards. Nothing compared to mushing with him. When Luna (the white husky) joined the team, they became a force of nature. Side by side, ears pinned back, they tore across asphalt and trail alike, smiling in that unmistakable husky way, souls bared to the wind, a thirst for the chase and beauty of the hunt that shook me to the bone.
It was an honor to mush with them and experience their joy on a normal day but when houses cattle or deer crossed the trails, all hell broke loose (did I mention the BEARS!). The affair would go from a 10 mile an hour joy ride to a 20 mile an hour turbo rampage on a dime if a chase was on.
For Versace, spirit was not just speed and power — hijinks and blood sport often ruled the day. A magnet for trouble, not a maker of it, he rarely started fights, but if challenged, he was all in. Dogs seemed drawn to him, charging out of fear or instinct. In disbelief, I once watched a small dog leap from its owner’s arms and bolted across a four-lane road and get struck by a car — simply trying to get to him for no reason but his life force, which honestly was pure. Chaos followed him like a shadow.
Fights were legendary. Often, I was the one with blood dripping off shredded hands from pulling dogs apart while spit, teeth and fur were flying. A big male husky in fight mode is like a buzzsaw. Being in the middle is probably as close as I’ll ever get to being bitten by a hungry shark.
In truth, he was never the kind of creature meant to live in our world. But he did. And now he’s gone. He leaves behind a hole in my heart far larger than the days we shared, the nights we howled, and the bears we chased.
RIP — Versace the Husky, 1/13/14–8/21/25, my good boy (mostly). I love you.
PS: He passed away from cancer after fighting for at least a year (if not more). His strength and grit gave us at least six extra months filled with big love, and yes, more mushing and bear chasing!
PPS: The educated reader will note there is no mention of cats, cows or chickens in the above tribute. Lawyers have advised statutes of limitations still may apply for possible crimes committed by VERSACE THE HUSKY! And that is all I have to say about that.