Bruno the Hero

Some of the best heroes are quiet. Bruno was like that. Just another brown dog, nothing too special. But Bruno had heart. The kind you can always depend on. The sad thing is that I really didn't know all that until he was gone. But that was just his way.

Bruno was one of the last original farm dogs. I started this place twenty, yeah, 20 years ago, and Bruno was one of the first puppies. There was a survivor instinct in Bruno, as things were never easy. We all struggled to survive and life's lessons were learned each day. When I was a tiny girl, I read a story about a great hero named Bruno. It has been a name that stuck with me as familiar throughout my life. I couldn't have picked a better name for sweet Bruno.

I used to feed the farm dogs on the deck in front of my cabin. Bruno was always the last to eat and would usually clean up any stray bites left on the deck. He was kind and selfless and yet he was brave and steady if need be. When I took the dogs for walks on the back road behind the farm, Bruno would always take the lead, sometimes jumping over to the railroad tracks and making some time. He just liked to be ahead of everyone else. Like a scout. I see that now, he was just being Bruno. The hero.

The world is a cruel and savage place and the tiniest of creatures can be our undoing. Poor Bruno contracted heartworms from a mosquito. There's no telling how long he had this horrible affliction. I just didn't know and I didn't protect him. It was in his tenth year that I noticed a little cough. I had to work at the time, and Bruno spent his days in a big comfortable chair in my bedroom, with the back door propped open for him. On special afternoons, I'd load up the dogs and go across the road to a big park by the Colorado River. The river surrounds the park, and is much too big to get too near. But Bruno and I would climb a small hill out on the lawns overlooking the edge of the river, and with the western sunset at our backs, I would put my arm around his shoulders and we would sit there together and it was heaven. There are dogs and then there are good dogs. Bruno was a good dog.

When he just couldn't keep up with the little dogs anymore, I made an appointment with the local vet and the next morning I took Bruno. We stopped by a local church yard filled with crepe myrtles and flowers and long lovely grass. But Bruno just stopped there in the yard as if to ask me, "what are we doing mom?" I couldn't bear to drag it out, so we loaded him up and took him to the vet, where he sat for the first time on a cold metal table and again looked at me like, "what mom?" To say that I am sad, I am guilty, I miss him, I'll never let that happen again, all would be such a total under-statement. When the vet removed the needle from his arm, Bruno turned his head to the side to look at me one last time. It is sad to say, but there are just some things we never forgive ourselves for, and some things we never get over. I miss Bruno so deeply in my heart that my eyes fill with tears just to remember him.

One night, about 2 months later, I had a dream. I was laying on a camp cot at the bottom of a street, and the street light was shining on us, and Bruno was sitting there beside me. He was barking and letting me know someone was coming. I looked down the street and there was the shadow of a man coming towards us. Of course I immediately woke up, but the realization has come to me that even in his death, Bruno was protecting me. His spirit was alive and well. He no longer felt weak and suffered. He was free. But hero that he was, loyal heart that he had, he was still my Bruno and he had a job to do. I love you Bruno. And I miss you terribly. You will always be my hero.