Duke the Dog Elected as Town Mayor

The title of this article is in no way misleading - a small town called Cormorant in Minnesota, in the US, has indeed elected a dog as its mayor, and in a landslide vote no less.

Well, landslide by this town’s standards anyway, with seven-year-old Duke receiving at least nine votes in his favour.

Cormorant is home to only twelve people who, over a period of five weeks, could pay one dollar to vote for whoever they wanted to be mayor.

Duke, a fluffy white Great Pyrenees, is known for guarding the small community and, according to David Rick, a local who voted for the dog, even enforces the speed limits for cars travelling through the town.

“What [Duke] does is when the cars are coming through town - they’re hitting town at 50mph [80.5kph] - and he slows them down,” Mr Rick explained.

Richard Sherbrook, who owns the Cormorant Store, was also in the running, but apparently didn’t even receive half the votes that Duke did. Mr Sherbrook, however, is not upset by this and admits that he voted for Duke himself.

“I’m going to back the dog 100%,” he said. “He is a sportsman and he likes to hunt. He’ll really protect the town. There is no question that he will do a good job representing the community.”

Duke was rewarded with five hours of grooming before being sworn in (after all, a mayor needs to look smart before addressing his town), and as he has no need for paper money, he is going to be paid for his services with a year’s supply of food from local store Tuffy’s Pet Food.

Another local resident, Tricia Maloney, said that Duke isn’t used to such publicity. “He is used to coming to the pub and getting some burgers and some fries or something,” she explained.

Funnily enough, Duke is not the first non-conventional mayor in the US - he isn’t even the first mayor who happens to be of the canine variety:

• Bosco, a black labrador-rottweiler cross was mayor of Californian town Sunrol from 1981 until 1994 (a statue of him now stands in front of the post office).


• Junior Cochran, a black labrador, was elected mayor of Rabbit Hash in Kentucky.


• After two years ‘in office’ in Dorset, Minnesota, five-year-old Bobby Tufts lost his re-election bid to a human 16-year-old.

It is wonderful that some smaller communities can show us the lighter side of politics and that it doesn’t always have to be so “ruff”... *groan*.