Fritz Bruno

BRUNO

Fritz Bruno v. Frischborn was born April 29, 1994 in northern Saskatchewan, and died August 5, 2008 on the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia. He is at rest near his brother, Ivan Theodore, on a large cattle ranch by the sea. They are in good company with eagles, giant cedar trees, and other beloved pets who have passed on. Our angel and our joy, Bruno was never a problem even when a puppy. He was attached to us in a special way, sitting at our feet with a happy face or bouncing around when we were excited, or nudging our hands to offer comfort when he knew we were upset about something. He was intensely loyal and we knew that he loved us. We loved him desperately.

As a young dog, he was very susceptible to ghirardia, and we pulled him through some episodes when we think he would see the next day. He learned to love the boiled rice and chicken that we prepared for him to eat, a spoonful at a time, to get his digestive system settled down. When an Entlebucher doesn?t want to eat, you know it is serious! He loved the Frisbee to distraction?it was his ?job? to retrieve, guard, and otherwise look after it. He loved to travel with us, and was always crushed if he was told to ?stay and watch the house.? He lived in two totally different homes, first on acreage in Colorado foothills and then on the Queen Charlotte Islands nestled up to a rain forest. He loved them both?home was where we were, and he was equally happy to walk in dry Colorado forest as on northern beaches.

When Bruno was 11 years of age, he won a gold medal for the obstacle course at the local K-9 Olympics on the islands. He was happy to trot along at my side barging through, over and around all the obstacles. One of the stations had brush dangling over an opening through which the dogs were to pass. Many dogs stopped dead at that entrance and had to be persuaded to proceed, but Bruno, quite used to crashing through brush in the forests where we have lived, thought nothing of it and gained the necessary extra points to win.

It was very sad to watch this strong, muscled dog slowly succumb in his battle with painful arthritis, losing ability to go up and down stairs and to support himself on his back legs. His body was enduring a strong medication for the last year and a half of his life, one which we knew would eventually cause problems with his internal organs. And so it did. In his last days, he would lie sprawled out on the carpet of yet another home that he shared with us, a 5th wheel RV, and stare at us. I often wondered, through tears, what he was trying to say with those eyes. They were not the happy eyes of the dog who had lived with us for 14 years. Then he would stumble down the stairs and nuzzle us just like he always had, making our realization of the inevitable even more difficult.

Then very early one morning in first light, he was violently ill, and I knew with a sinking heart, as I stumbled to my feet, that we were close to the end. It was a holiday weekend, so we again prepared him special meals to keep his stomach calm. A few days later, we took him to our vet, who had been his doctor for many years, and we could see in the doctor?s eyes and in his gentle words that anything we did would be prolonging our old companion?s misery. Bruno liked the vet?s cattle ranch, and knew the vet and his wife well. As we left him, we knew that he went to sleep believing that we would come back to pick him up. It nearly broke our hearts.