“I wasn’t expecting it at all,” said Frane, a 51-year-old rancher from Colorado. “I think I had gone to pick up some food and then when I came back he had all the lights turned down with just a few lights on and a bunch of candles lit.”
“So when I came in I was like, ‘Wow, this is awesome,'” Frane added. “Then he said, ‘Come in, sit down because I need to talk to you.’ And he got down on one knee and he opened the ring box and he said, ‘Will you marry me and spend the rest of our lives together?'”
Dog and Frane are planning to wait until after the coronavirus pandemic is over to have their wedding so that all of their friends and family can come.
“I would love to have the biggest wedding there’s ever been,” Dog said. “I’m sorry but that’s just me. I hope I can talk Francie into it and open it to my fans, the ‘Dog Pound,’ to everybody.”
“It would be one hell of a party and it’s just what people need right now,” he added.
Dog has previously said that he bonded with Frane over their shared grief, as she lost her husband to cancer right before he lost Beth.
“I know that when I start to feel bad about Beth and it’s overwhelming, Francie seems to show up and that helps the kids,” Dog said. “And I feel that Beth expects her to show up to take care of me. And Bob, Francie’s late husband, expects me to be a man and a gentleman and so I am.”
He has also said that he believes that Beth would support him moving on and marrying again.
“I need a partner,” said Dog. “I’ve said it before. There will never be another Mrs. Dog. There is not. Francie couldn’t do that. There will be a last Mrs. Chapman. If Beth was here, and saw Francie and saw how she was raised, her morality and this and that, Beth would say, ‘Big daddy, don’t lose her.’ ”
“You’ll never forget the spouse,” he added. “You can’t help it. I will never forget. But I’ve got to get out there. I’ve got to be able to say, ‘I came out of this and you can, too.’ As a human being, I don’t think you look for — not a replacement, because you can never find one. I’m learning that right now.”
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