Rancher Kip Konig saw the German shepherd in the distance as he checked his cattle Sunday in the Pawnee National Grassland.
The dog kept running back to a pickup partially obscured in a depression and jumping into the front seat.
“I got the sense she was trying to tell me where her master was,” Konig said.
Near the pickup, Konig spotted the skeletal remains of Jake Baysinger, the German shepherd’s owner. Baysinger had shot himself six weeks earlier.
Baysinger and the dog, named Cash, left their home in La Salle on June 28.
To Konig, the dog had been guarding Baysinger. Tuesday, Sara Baysinger, Jake’s widow, said that what happened was the story of a kind, gentle dog.
Cash apparently lived off mice, rabbits and other rodents as she watched over the body of the man who adopted her when she was a puppy, she said.
“She was Jake’s baby,” Baysinger said. “She was our baby before we had our son.”
Sara, 23, and Jake, 25, were childhood sweethearts and started dating 12 years ago. They married five years ago. Baysinger said that investigators have told her that they believe Cash protected Jake’s body from coyotes and other animals and would jump into the pickup, which had both of its windows rolled down, to get out of the weather.
Except for being dehydrated, Cash was in good health, Baysinger said. Rescuers and veterinarians were astounded by her good condition.
Mindi Dosch, the vet who examined Cash, said Cash was very thin when she was brought in but in good health. At the clinic, Cash was “kissing” everyone in sight and was “bright and alert.”
On Monday, Baysinger picked up Cash from the Weld County Humane Society.
“She was extremely excited,” said Baysinger, laughing. “She got in the truck and was licking on me.”
One of the happiest reunions was between Cash and her little buddy, 2-year-old Lane Baysinger.
“He went running towards her, trying to get some bones, trying to feed her treats,” Sara Baysinger recalled.
According to Chris Robillard, deputy coroner in Weld County, it appears that Jake Baysinger committed suicide with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol.
Robillard strongly suspects that Baysinger killed himself June 28, the Saturday afternoon on which he disappeared with Cash.
Baysinger said she has fond memories of Jake playing with Cash.
“They would go to a park down from the house and they would play fetch forever and ever and ever,” Baysinger recalled.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
