Mountain Folk Tails: A lot of love in that dog – The Mountain -Ear

News with Altitude since 1977
Friday, January 27, 2023
The Mountain-Ear is located at:
20 E. Lakeview Drive, Unit 109 (inside Brightwood Music).
Our mailing address is PO Box 99, Nederland, CO 80466
We are also located at: 245 Apollo Drive, PO Box 99, Black Hawk, CO 80422
Phone: (303) 810-5409
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.themtnear.com
Breaking News: Nederland property owner shuts down CBD parking
By MtnEarStaff | on January 26, 2023
PHOTOS BY LORENA DE SANTA
Meet Blue, this year’s Mountain-Ear Pet of the Year. He is three and a half years old, about the handsomest hound dog you’ll ever see. He’s not a purebred, with that curly tail and the black spots on his tongue. But he is all hound.
You may have seen him at Ermel’s Emporium, the thrift-shop-plus in Central City. Like most of the locals, he likes to stop by and hang with the ladies who volunteer there. They can’t get enough of him, it’s like he’s their unofficial mascot.
Blue is not from Central City, he started out in some shelters in Arkansas. He had health problems. Thankfully, there are angels who search out shelter dogs and cats in other states, and bring them to Colorado to heal and thrive.
That’s exactly what Blue has done, living with his family, Jules Korman and Robby Wicks. They’re not from Central City either. Jules grew up on five wooded acres in Black Forest, outside of Colorado Springs. She met Robby in high school, but they didn’t spend time together – different crowds, they were into different things.
 
After high school, Jules briefly moved to New Orleans. When she returned for a visit, she went out for some music, and it happened that Robby was in the band.
Robby is a professional singer/ songwriter. You may have seen him play around here, solo or with the Robby Wicks Band. His music is bluesy, folksy, maybe a taste of country. Bob Dylan is a big influence, along with John Lennon and Hank Williams.
When Jules moved back to Colorado, she and Robby met up, and “the rest is history,” she says. They landed in Central City, where Robby writes and plays his music.
Jules works at the Gilpin Art Gallery, manages short-term rentals, and runs the Levit Street Market. “I do all these side hustles, it’s not like any one thing is my main gig.”
They both brought their own dogs into the relationship. Those dogs eventually passed, and it took a few years before Jules and Robby could even think about getting another dog. A few Octobers ago, that changed. Charlie’s Place, the nearby animal shelter extraordinaire, set up a booth at the Levit Street Market. Jules was there working, and Robby was performing close by. A Charlie’s Place volunteer began walking an adoptable dog around the market, showing him off. He was a happy young hound by the name of Jack Daniels (he was black and brown.)
“I saw all these people talking to him,” Jules recalls. “I got on my knees, looked him in his eyes, and that was it! I told the volunteer I wanted him and asked her to stop showing him. I ran over to Robby, he was on his break, and told him, ‘you’ve got to see this dog! I want to get him.’” Robby took one look at Jack Daniels and he was all in.
Except for that name, and by the next day Jack Daniels was Blue. “He’s everything we ever hoped for in a dog, and more,” says Robby, “He matches our personalities. He settled in quickly, and he slept in his dog bed every night.” Of course that didn’t last. Now he sleeps in the bed with the rest of the family.
Blue is living large. His front yard is an acre and a half, and he’s got it all to himself. He sprints, he sniffs stuff out, he chases birds. When Jules works at the gallery, Blue goes with her. He goes to the market, the Emporium, and anywhere else he can.
“If dogs are allowed, we bring him,” Robby explains. Even on road trips.
The family has gone to Silverton, Arizona, and southwest Colorado. “His favorite place to go is anywhere with us,” says Robby. “He loves to be around us.”
There are toys, lots of toys. Jules says, “When he gets a toy, his main goal is to shred it and destroy it as quickly as possible. So we get him the hard toys. He finds the squeakers and rips them out in minutes.”
Blue has some dog friends, Kylo and Parker. He loves to play with them, but not so much in the winter. That is not his favorite season, Jules says, he’s not a fan of the cold. “He can be a wuss about his paws, there have even been a couple times when he just stops in the snow, and we’ve had to carry him back inside.” All of his dog beds are in front of the wood stoves.
He doesn’t think much of water, either. Blue once went kerplunk in a pond that was covered with leaves. All the running and zooming and shaking could not get him dry enough. He’s had a few baths – after rolling in poop, but you probably knew that – and he did not enjoy them.
A few months after Blue moved in, Robby proposed to Jules. It happened on New Year’s Eve, just over a year ago, at the Teller House in Central City. Nobody told me this, I’m just guessing that Blue might have had something to do with that. There’s a lot of love in that house. There’s a lot of love in that dog.
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