Bruno Comes Home...!!

He was born in a street next to the school – a tiny 15 day old, thin, dusty, but happy nevertheless, an active baby he was, when he came home. We were very excited; it really didn't matter if he did not belong to a superior pedigree. We were allowed to keep him with us, only if we took responsibility for it.

We began by finding a good name and zeroed in on Bruno.....a name derived from the Germanic word ‘brun’ meaning ‘Shield or Armor’, a name that we would later go on to realize, was very apt for him. Suddenly it appeared that both of us siblings had become responsible overnight. We took turns at training the little one – since it was summer vacations we were allowed to spend a lot of time with our new friend or rather younger sibling as we had started believing. Even at the lightest whimper at night we would wake up and run to the little one. For once even our small squabbles had stopped which was a pleasant surprise for our parents.

Bruno grew up quickly to be a sturdy young fellow; he would run in the whole neighborhood like he owned all of it. He was a terror to the little children returning from school; he would run after them playfully and they would get scared. He had average height with little fur, his color was white with patches of black and his tail was coiled like a telephone cord. He would follow my father everywhere except for the time when he left for work. He had made a small territory for himself and he guarded it fiercely, this included us also.

He would also consider himself at par with us and no less. One night he refused to get to his sleeping place and kept pulling the pillow – it was only after the spare pillow was given to him that he resigned to his now complete bed – complete with a small mattress, a small blanket and now his own pillow. Yet, once the lights went off in our parents’ room, he would sneak into our room and find a place on the bed.

It was late December, just after Christmas; my father was travelling and we were alone with our mother. It had been a week since Bruno came inside the house. Each morning there would be a layer of frost on the lawn and Bruno would be cold and shivering. We tried every possible way to get him into the house, but he would not budge. If this continued any longer, we would surely have him seriously ill. We were really worried for him. He would spend the night by the fence where he had last traced that stranger’s smell. This had started since a drunken man had lost his way and rang our doorbell. Bruno barked furiously that night asking us to let him out. He would've attacked the stranger and we didn't want him to hurt the stranger. No one opened the door and the stranger left. He later went to our neighbors' house and soon left the place. Since my father was travelling, Bruno considered it his responsibility to be taking care of our security. He barked relentlessly and finally when we were sure that the stranger would be far from Bruno’s reach, we let him out. Bruno sniffed around till he could trace the stranger’s smell to our neighbors' house by the fence and there he had parked himself since the last one week waiting to attack the stranger when he came back.

It was a usual afternoon, all of us soaking in the winter sun in the backyard, reading a book and eating oranges. The dogs would normally sit by our side and chase the birds that would come to steal the rice from their plates, except, that this time; Bruno was on the other side of the fence on guard duty. We were discussing how to get him indoors; all our efforts since the last one week had gone in vain. Just then, my mother went up to Bruno and started scolding him just as she would do to us if we were disobedient. She shouted at him,’ Bruno, why are you not listening to us; you know Papa is not at home and instead of helping us you are creating trouble. What will we do if anything happens to you? Do you realise that the weather is not good for you? Is this the way to behave?’ We really do not know what Bruno could understand of her two minute admonishment but that evening, as it was time for dinner, we heard a knock on the door....we looked out and saw him scratching the door to let him in.

Finally our Bruno had come home....like he always did, every evening!!

This is a true story..............