“‘Ah, Durendal! so bright, so brave, so gay! How dost thou glitter and shine in the sun’s rays! When Charles was keeping the vales of Moriane...’” 

In The Song of Roland, Charlamagne's nephew lays on the battlefield at the brink of death. Rather than surrender his mighty sword to his enemy’s, he tries to break it on a rock, but it will not yield. 

“Yet the blade breaks not nor splinters, though it groans; Upward to heaven it rebounds from the blow.” 

In 1993, I read Roland's story in college world literature. Shortly after, I named my first boxer Roland. For 13 years that beautiful animal traveled with me through most of Europe and much of the US until he crossed the bridge in Colorado in 2005. Less than a year later, we adopted little Charly – short for Charlamagne. What Charly lacked in girth and strength, he more than made up for in quickness and courage. Shortly after Charly left us much too soon in 2015, we were called upon to rescue a pitifully frail, abandoned boxer pup who we aptly named Durendal, or Duren for short.  

Even as a puppy we learned that his tail we never docked was a lethal weapon and earned him the appropriate nickname Swordtail. He came to us with an unusual injury to his right elbow that resulted in a fused joint, but he never let it slow him down. Duren grew into the strongest, quickest, most massive boxer I have ever seen. At 99 pounds, his chiseled features made him look like a Roman god of dogs. With his big frame came a big heart, a heart too big for this world.

At only five years old, this world could not break him, so Durendal,,, rebounded to the heavens.