Once while horsing around with Bru in the back yard, Dan got flipped in the air and wound up with a broken collar bone. Then on a hot summer day when Bru was suffering from the heat and wanted only to be left alone in the a/c, Mike playfully grabbed him around the neck and Brutus took a little nip of Mike’s ear—which required 20-some stitches. We were very watchful of Bru after that, but the boys learned to respect the size and strength of the “giant puppy” and no further problems occurred.

I took Bru to obedience school when he was about a year old—and he won a ribbon for Most Progress at the end of the eleven sessions.

We discovered that the other Saint in the class was Bru’s brother, Zac, and what a difference in temperament! Zac bit the instructor and could be controlled only by a pinch collar. Bru performed quite well most of the time, and still responds to our commands of Sit and Lie Down, unless he has something more important to do.

One command he usually ignores altogether, especially if he has somehow escaped from the house or yard, is “Come.” Then he’s just gone until he decides to come back, which usually isn’t long.

Once we took Brutus camping with us, and the best part of that weekend was when he got to go swimming in the lake. We scared a few people half to death, but he really loved that water!

But winter is really his time. Comes the first cold spell and he is as frisky as a colt, running around, chasing after anything or nothing, and is often reluctant to come inside.

And snow! When I let him out in the morning after a snowfall, it is as if he is being called by the blood of generations of Alpine ancestors. He trots briskly out into the snow, licks it, takes a bite of it, then lowers his head, his neck, his entire body, and rolls in it. A glorious sight to see—this descendant of fine animals bred to rescue stranded travelers in the Swiss mountains, a native of flat Oklahoma himself, but clearly in his element.

Then we moved to Chicago—I’m sure the worst eleven months in Bru’s life, as well as ours. We had to find a place to live that would accept Bru, and then just move in with him. Most apartments either forbid pets or have a 25-lb. weight limit. Rental agents laugh at you when you have a St. Bernard.

But we had one, and we intended to keep him. One apartment complex accepted him, all right—along with every other kind of dog you can imagine. It was a zoo. One of us had to take him out on a leash several times a day—and night—rain,

Inside the apartment, a better dog couldn’t be found. He is quiet, slow moving, and spends 90% of his time sleeping, or at least just lying around. Except for the hair, which I vacuumed up by the ton, he was no trouble at all in the apartment.

Then on May 1, 1974, tragedy struck. Out for his morning walk, Bru saw a bird and chased it, right into the highway and the path of an oncoming car. The driver saw him and slowed down, but couldn’t avoid hitting him in the rear end.

It was incredible! People we didn’t know—and never would know—came out of those apartment buildings to help or to watch in real concern. They all recognized the beautiful St. Bernard. Someone came up with a station wagon, someone else helped move him onto a large piece of plywood, and off they went to the vet.

A day later, we found out the extent of the damage—a tooth or two broken, no internal injuries, but his left hind leg was shattered. They would have to try to put it together “like a jigsaw puzzle,” put in a metal plate which, because of the size, had to be flown in especially from Philadelphia, and hope for the best. It was some time around then that we started calling him the Six Million Dollar Dog.

He came home a week later, the most pathetic sight we had ever seen. His hind leg and rear end were shaved, a hideous surgical incision ran down the leg, and a huge “Elizabethan” plastic collar nearly three feet in diameter was around his neck to keep him from turning around to lick his leg. Our instructions from the vet would have been funny if they hadn’t been so awful: “Keep him quiet; only take him out a couple of times a day; and absolutely keep him off any stairs.

“But we live in a second floor apartment.”

The vet couldn’t believe it. “Can you keep him in a shed or garage or something, so you can take him outside when he needs to go?”

“No shed or garage.”

“Then you’ll have to either carry him up and down the stairs, or barricade him in a bathroom or kitchen and clean up after him.”

That’s what we did—barricaded him in the small kitchen. Perfectly housebroken, he was miserably unhappy about going in the kitchen, but having no choice, he did. And having no choice, I cleaned it. It really wasn’t as bad as it may sound. My kitchen has never been cleaner than it was then.

He was in some pain and growled at us occasionally, but still, he let us cleanse his incision, and eventually I had to remove the sutures. It took about six weeks to heal, before we could begin taking him down the stairs again—and then so many people started coming up to us to say they were glad to see Brutus out again. Some hadn’t heard what had happened after he had been taken away—people in apartments just don’t know each other or make much effort to find out things. But Brutus helped show us that there were good people with kind hearts behind those bleak, impersonal brick walls.

Brutus really didn’t have any bad effects from his accident except in very cold weather. We can’t let him stay outside for long or his leg becomes practically paralyzed.

In January 1975 we moved to St. Charles, MO, and again we had a nice big house, this time with a basement, where we decided Bru would stay. He decided he wouldn’t, however, and he spent most of his time in the house. We never did get around to putting up a fence there, but put Bru outside on a long chain a few times a day. He preferred to come back in soon, and he would bark to let us know when he wanted to come in.

Dan had a series of small pets—gerbils, hamsters, and guinea pigs, which he kept in plastic Habitrail cages in his room. Brutus was either totally fascinated by them or extremely jealous of them, maybe both. Dan tried to keep him out of his room, but once in a while Brutus would find the door open and sneak in. Then it took the vacuum cleaner to get him out. He would stand or sit with his nose pressed against the plastic cage, hypnotized by the little animals. inside.

For a while Dan had a plastic exercise ball in which the gerbil or hamster could roll himself all over the house. That nearly drove Bru crazy.

Brutus moved again with us to a townhouse in Kansas City, where his outdoor area was a fenced-in patio.

Brutus then moved with us to Woodbridge, VA, where we have a large fenced yard with plenty of shady trees. He loves to get out there, to roll in the snow, to slop around in the rain and mud, to bark at the black Doberman next door, to chase squirrels—but always to scratch at the back door, to come in, to be with his family.