NERO

“All he ever asked was to ‘work’ and to be with us…”

“He was matted and skinny; he was also bold and confident, hitting 3 rungs and he bounded up a ladder to a shed roof and jumping down to the ground. He was happy to do anything for a toy, dunking his head in a bin of water to retrieve the ball, holding onto the ball on a string as the man lifted him off the ground and swum him around his shoulders. He was to be my new partner.

He looked at me and decided a home, after 17 months as a kenned dog in Slovakia, Germany, and rural NY State, might not be such a bad thing. While unloading my truck in 90 degree heat, unbeknownst to me, he jumped the fence and climbed back into the crate.

He leaned household manners in a flash. I doubt he’d ever had toys and thus was never found without one – preferably two, so you always knew where he’d been.

He quickly learned his nose was the key to his payment whether it was on the rubble, in the woods, or on a search boat. In fact, in beginning Schutzhund he saw no reason to go around the blind as he was supposed to – he had gone up and sniffed and knew no one was there. He was intense in his work in a quiet, purposeful. clear-headed way, teaching himself to seek the high point on the rubble to better work the scent.

All he ever asked was to “work” and to be with us – kind of a lopsided bargain, it seems to me, but one for which I’m forever grateful.”

December 25, 1997 – September 27, 2007

– Elizabeth Kreitler