BEST FRIEND

WASILLA — Jack Runser has trouble describing the night he lost his dog Sheba.

Runser, 37, who has been deaf with cerebral palsy since birth, said through an interpreter that he and his dog were walking together Nov. 25 when Sheba went to relieve herself. They briefly lost sight of each other.

“She was loyal to the end,” Runser said. “She thought I crossed the highway.”

Sheba ran into traffic, was hit and died.

“Thank God she didn’t suffer,” Runser says in an e-mail to friends the day following the event.

“We were a team together for a little more than 15 years,” Runser said Friday. “I trained her myself, and we knew each other’s flaws, but we accepted each other and we were more than just a team. We were each other’s best friends.”

Sheba, half border collie and half, Runser thinks, blue heeler, came to him as a puppy. He found her at a pet shop in the Northway Mall in Anchorage.

“Back then I was dating a lady, and Sheba picked me over her,” Runser said with a laugh. “And we were inseparable from that minute.”

Sheba and Runser were a well-known presence around Wasilla. He works at the Alaska Club and Sheba could be found there most days by his side. Now, Runser said it’s been hard when people, so used to seeing the pair together, ask about Sheba.

His dog was more than a pet. Trained as a hearing dog. Sheba would alert Runser, who lives alone, when there was someone at the door or his phone was ringing. If someone was shouting for his attention, Sheba would let him know.

Leslie Rule, who has been Runser’s friend since she spotted him one cold night in the Subway parking lot and gave him a ride home, said Sheba even saved Runser’s life. Probably more than once.

Sheba woke Runser up when his home caught fire, a blaze that killed two cats. And the dog bit and chased off a man who climbed through Runser’s window one night.

Even more than that, though, Runser said Sheba was almost like his daughter.

“One thing my dad said that I feel summarizes her very well was she wasn’t just a dog,” Runser said. “She was a person all to herself.”

Friday, Runser had numerous stories to share about Sheba. Like their last hike together, in which they stayed overnight on Pioneer Peak.

“No sleeping bag, no tent, just me and Sheba and a little food and drink,” is how Runser describes it.

Then there was the time he, his father and Sheba attended a lecture at the University of Alaska Anchorage. The audience began to applaud and Sheba started barking. Runser and his dad hushed the dog.

“After the lecture … the presenter sought us out and talked to us and basically said that she thought Sheba was applauding her too,” Runser said.

Sheba never wanted to leave Runser’s side, he said. He tried a couple of times to get her to retire, to transition from work as a service dog into life as a pet. But Sheba would have none of it.

“She wouldn’t stay home and relax,” he said.

Runser has lately been working on his bachelor’s degree in human services at Mat-Su College. He already holds two associate’s degrees, he said — one in general studies, the other in human services. After that, he hopes to spend some time in the Peace Corps and then put his degree to use.

“I love helping people. Always have. Always will,” Runser said.

And, Runser said he’s probably going to need to replace Sheba even though she is in many ways irreplaceable. He was resistant to the idea at first, but said friends and family have pulled him around.

“People who knew me and Sheba, they all say I should honor Sheba’s memory by accepting another dog,” Runser said.

The Wasilla Police Department has stepped in to help raise money for a new hearing dog for Runser. A trained dog costs up to $20,000.

He said numerous other folks have stepped up to offer condolences, and the North Star Veterinary Clinic has said it would be honored to cremate Sheba for free.

“Sheba touched so, so many people,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.