K-9

I woke up last night thinking about my time as a disc jockey in Houston in the early ‘60s. Specifically, about an incident that occurred about this time of year in 1963.

I was doing a music show from 10 pm until 2 am on KQUE, an fm station that shared a building at the corner of Caroline and Blodgett with our sister station, KNUZ. Both stations are long gone, but back then KNUZ was constantly number one or number two in Houston , and KQUE became the first fm station to ever achieve top Nielsen ratings in the market– that was for the midnight to six am time slot so the guy that came on after me and I both took credit for the achievement.

We had a great news department, and excellent relations with the Houston Police. Cops who worked the area often stopped by for coffee, and one of our regulars was a young K-9 officer and his dog.

Kurt, was a beautiful example of a German Shepherd, and he was HUGE. I don’t know how much he weighed, but it is not an exaggeration to say that he could stand in the back of the Plymouth patrol car with his nose out the driver’s side window and several inches of his tail out the passenger side. He was easily the biggest shepherd I’ve ever seen.

One night around one o'clock, Kurt and his handler, Officer Larry XXXXX (I honestly don’t remember his last name. It was always just Larry and Kurt.) showed up at the door.

Kurt seemed to be grinning. Larry, on the other hand, was panting and had tears streaming down his face; my first thought was that he had been maced. It took quite a while for the story to come out, Larry kept going into fits of giggles, but he told me that just before stopping at the station, they had an encounter in Hermann Park.

Kurt had been starting to squirm, acting like he needed to answer a call of nature, so Larry pulled over. He parked the patrol car between Miller Outdoor Theater and the club house for the municipal golf course. Then he let Kurt out, and decided to find a tree for himself.

He had just begun to relieve himself when Kurt let out a low growl and tore off across the park. Larry looked up to see a couple making love on the fairway, and Kurt headed toward them like a rocket.

The young woman was on top, and when Kurt arrived he stuck his cold, wet nose right in the center of the action. If she was moving vigorously before Kurt arrived, she moved a lot faster after. Larry swore she was one solid scream across McGregor Drive and down Braes Bayou well beyond Almeda Road.

Kurt didn’t chase her. He stood on her companion’s chest and growled at his throat while all evidence of the poor guy’s amorous intentions rapidly faded away.

I asked Larry what happened next, did he arrest them for public indecency or something?

He said, “I zipped up, called Kurt and got out of there. I figured they’d had enough excitement for one night.”