After 16 years as Cheyenne’s unofficial ambassador of art, Dot — the black-eyed Jack Russell terrier who loved french fries — died Friday.
Harvey Deselms, owner of Deselms Fine Art and Custom Framing and the driving force behind Cheyenne’s Capitol Avenue Bronze Art Project, shared the news that his beloved Dot had to be put down due to illness.
Dot was well known around Wyoming’s capital city.
“She was a great little girl. She helped a lot of people do a lot of stuff,” Deselms said on Monday. “I’ve worked with a lot of people recovering from addiction and alcoholism and stuff like that, and she would let people just sit there and love on her while they were dealing with their demons or coming down.
"She was just a big source of comfort for a lot of people.”
Deselms said the terrier had decided that she was not going to eat. He had taken her to the veterinarian last Tuesday, and she had lost two pounds in a month.
The pet’s kidney, liver, and pancreas functions were concerning, and she got a shot for her arthritis.
Thursday she was laying around, and Friday she was not eating and had lost another pound of her weight, Deselms said.
He made the heart-wrenching decision to take Dot to the vet to end her life.
“It’s not fair to her to just have her lie there and hurt and not know what’s going on,” he said. “It was time.”
Patience For ’Shenanigans'
Deselms said that while growing up on a ranch, his family had a lot of working dogs that lived outside.
But Dot was his first inside dog, and the first he ever bought.
He still remembers being inspired by a friend who lived with him at the time while he attended college. The friend had his own Jack Russell puppy he got in Lander.
An ad for Jack Russell puppies in Carpenter spurred Deselms to drive out and investigate a potential pet of his own.
“We drove out there and took a look and I said, ‘We’ve got to get that one with the black eye,’” he said.
Over the years, Dot became not only his companion and friend, but also a draw for his business, going to work with him every day at his gallery.
He said the unconditional love from Dot, who “put up with my shenanigans,” will be missed.
Deselms said he’s thankful that he commissioned Colorado artist Christine Knapp to do three life-size bronzes of Dot earlier this year in anticipation of the terrier’s deteriorating health.
He plans to put the cremated remains of his beloved companion in the one he keeps at his home.
Harvey Deselms and bronze sculpture artist Christine Knapp show off the real and bronze versions of Dot, Deselms’ Jack Russell terrier. The bronze is in front. (Courtesy Harvey Deselms) 
Harvey Deselms said the loss of the Jack Russell terrier is a “lot tougher” than he imagined it would be. (Courtesy Harvey Deselms) 
Left, a painting of Dot with a treat. She especially liked french fries. Right, her portrait on a tag. (Courtesy Harvey Deselms) 
Dot and the bronze of herself prior to being colored. (Courtesy Harvey Deselms)
Final Resting Place
When he dies, Deselms said he wants the bronze of Dot and her ashes to be placed next to his grave in a family plot in the Burns Cemetery.
He also has several paintings of Dot and posted those on social media to memorialize his friend.
While some may not understand the value and connection between a man and his pet, Deselms shared that he didn’t realize “how tough” her loss would be.
“Every morning it was, ‘Come on Dot, let’s load up, come to the gallery,'” he said. “And she would waddle down the street with me walking in.”
Dot would go around the perimeter of the gallery to ensure everything was “safe” and would spend her time in the shop greeting people, and then load up and go home.
In terms of being an asset at his business, the little furry dynamo was “the best marketing manager ever,” Deselms said.
Dot’s love for french fries routinely had friends and former customers dropping in with some leftover treats for Dot from the city’s restaurants.
“People would come in and give Dot some lovin’ and then they would go, ‘Oh, Hi Harv,’” he said. “So, she was the star of the show.”
Although an inside gallery dog for most of her life, Deselms said the Jack Russell terrier, a breed developed to hunt foxes in England, had her wild side as well.
Trips to the family ranch would typically lead to some serious bath time. She would find a big “pile” to roll in, and on one occasion found a dead skunk.
The ‘Ruffian’
While she was a “princess lady” in the gallery, Dot could show her “ruffian side,” one time taking the tail off a bunny in the neighborhood, Deselms said.
He named a local squirrel “Three-Quarter” after Dot chased it and got close enough to claim a quarter of its tail for her own.
Deselms said when his friend’s grandmother stayed at their house, she discovered that her glasses were missing.
Dot liked shiny things and had grabbed them. Then she buried them in a planter in the garage.
The flip side of her personality was that somebody would come to the gallery on a bad day and Dot would curl up on their lap and let them “love her,” he said.
Deselms said she was a therapeutic dog for “me and a lot of people.”
Knapp is making tiny bronzes of Dot that will be for sale in Deselms’ gallery this summer for customers who knew the shop’s little ambassador or someone who just wants a bronze of a cute Jack Russell terrier.
Deslems said he is trying to use the “good memories” of Dot to combat the heaviness he’s feeling for her loss.
Friends have asked him about getting another dog, but that is too painful for him even to think about now. Dot’s presence in his life for so long makes a replacement hard to imagine.
“God will put the right dog in my way if I am supposed to have one,” Deslems said. “Right now, I just can’t.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
