Lee Benson: 'Bone man' is a dog's best friend

If it's true that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his dog, with Russ Lakin there's no guesswork at all about his humanity.

Russ treats everybody's dogs.

It all started when Russ was employed as a salesman at Granite Furniture Co. in Sugar House. On his lunch hour he would drive home and take his dog, a bull terrier named Trouble, for a walk.

The walk with Trouble naturally aroused interest among the neighborhood dogs, which aroused interest in Russ. Why should Trouble get all the love and attention? Why not toss the other dogs a treat as he went by?

So he went to the store, bought some milk bones and chicken strips and started handing them out over fences and onto porches.

That was 24 years ago.

He's been doing it daily — except Sunday — year-round ever since.

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I had the rare privilege of accompanying Russ Lakin on one of his dog walks last week. I wanted to see how it felt to be looked at as a friend to dog's best friend.

We started at Russ's house and did the circuit, down 2500 East to Downington, Laurel Hurst, Redondo and back to where we started. It's about a mile route, counting going up and down alleys and driveways, and takes about an hour.

Russ treats about 30 dogs. If a dog isn't home that day, and several were on vacation the day of our walk, he leaves the treats where they can find them later. He also leaves candy on the doorsteps of houses with little children. Russ is an easy guy to like.

Max sure likes him. Max is the German shepherd who lives next-door to Russ' house, the first dog on the route. He hears Russ coming before he sees him and bounds to the window in the front room. "Oh, you big lug," shouts out Russ, like he's greeting an old Army mate from the days when he flew as a navigator in North Africa in World War II.

As we move past the window to the sideyard, so does Max. The huge police dog exits his house through the dog door and appears at the gate the same time we do. Russ throws him a chicken strip, followed by a large dog bone, and then another.

"You're a big dog," he says. "So you get two."

On like this it goes. Dogs appear as if out of nowhere, anticipating Russ and his magic bag of treats. Some bark, some drool, some wag their tails so fast they could light up Tooele.

"They're spoiled rotten," says Russ.