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Cats and Dog
Bruno
Bruno was my first and so far my only dog. He invented the trick of trying to get himself through the cat flap long before the advertisers of Pedigree Chum thought of it! He was a beautiful but incredibly thick Red Setter. He came from an Irish family in Birmingham, and was so fat when we got him, you could barely tell he was a Setter. He didn't know the word "WALK" but certainly knew the word "PUB". He was covered in dust from the workshop where he spent much of his days.
He was such a gentle, submissive dog, that he would even give in to Yorkshire Terriers, making for a rather bizarre scene in the local park with Bruno lying on his back submitting to a yipping little Yorkie. He was a soft trusting thing, who would go off with anybody holding a choccy bar. He especially liked sausages and Mars bars, each of which he could eat in one bite. But he also ate some bizarre meals, including 3lbs of Cadbury's Roses, including the wrappers, a packet of After Eight Mints, a packet of Fishermans' Friends, and half a packet of Ariel Ultra! He loved water, and walks were carefully planned to avoid it, so we didn't have a soggy doggy in the car, alas to no avail, because he always found some.
In true Irish setter fashion, he was completely un-trainable. He did know about words such as "sit" and "stay" but it just didn't filter through to his brain. "Heel" was walk at heel for two paces before charging off again. But he was well meaning and tried to please, and his failures were acknowledged with a hopeful wag of the last two inches of his tail. He couldn't do "fetch" which made our walks a lot more long and exhausting - he'd set off with great enthusiasm but forget what he was doing before the frisbee hit the ground. He was pretty good a setting game, and indeed, needed to be encouraged to move again once he had spotted some duck on the local stream. He loved swimming and once tried to set off for Ireland from Pembrokeshire, until we swam after him and rescued him!
He was also prone to wandering when let off the lead, and in his time has visited Woolworth's and the local Rugby club, each time being found by a crowd of doting admirers, and being most reluctant to leave the choccy drops he was being fed to come home! Maybe he wasn't so daft after all :-)
Poor old Bruno lived to the ripe old age of 13, and died as a result of arthritis in his spine, in 1995.
