Fritz — The Gold Standard

My first basset hound was a gift from my daughter and a friend. I had had a tough year — breaking my hand and spraining my ankle during campaigning for public office, losing the election, and then having my long- time best dog friend, Fritz pass away all within a month. 

Fritz was a basset/dachshund mutt and the gold standard by which all future dogs have been judged. He moved to Austin with us and was always by my side when Jerry was out of town and the kids were in school. During legislative sessions, Jerry would remind me to “talk to Fritz’s food, because he would not eat until I came home, picked up his bowl, stirred the food, and told him it looked yummy. Then, and only then would he eat. 

On Sunday afternoons during football season, Fritz knew it was nap time. The general rule was that dogs were not allowed on the bed. But Fritz knew the one exception to the rule was Sunday afternoons while Dad watched football games, Mom took naps. It became such a routine that when the TV came on, he would go and sit by the bedroom door waiting for me to begin the naptime ritual.

Not long after we moved to Austin, Fritz disappeared. We later determined that a neighbor had been involved in the disappearance, but at the time we thought he had somehow managed to get himself lost. We tried everything we could think of from calling vet offices and shelters to putting up signs. After about two weeks we had to tell the kids we did not think Fritz would be coming home. It was a heartbreaking conversation for all involved. But just as we were beginning to come to peace with the idea, I received a phone call at work from a lady who informed me she thought she had my dog. 

She lived about 30 miles from where we did, so the likelihood of it being Fritz was slim. Voicing my doubts, she asked if I would like to talk to him on the phone. Have you ever tried to maintain your professional demeanor in an office shared with three other co-workers and talk to your dog over the phone at the same time? Well, my hope overcame my fear of humiliation, and she put the phone up to his ear. 

“Hey, Fritzi. Is that you, buddy?,” I whispered. 

“This is definitely your dog!” the kind woman exclaimed.

Promising to come pick him up as soon as work was over, she graciously volunteered to take him home instead. She said the kids had been without their dog long enough. And so, through the kindness of a dog-loving stranger, we got our boy back. 

From that day forward, he would not let me out of his sight if I was at home — and that was fine with me. For the next seven years he shadowed my every step. He helped me cook, clean, knit and quilt. He followed me to the door every morning when I left from work and met me there when I got home. I never had to be afraid of going to the bathroom by myself again. He slept beside my bed and his soft snore reassured me throughout the night that he was right where he was supposed to be. 

Then that horrible, terrible, no good month where everything seemed to fall apart came, and Fritz suffered liver failure. Suddenly the lost election, sprained ankle and broken hand seemed inconsequential compared to the prospects before me. When he could no longer follow me around we knew the end was near. My grief left me moping around, believing the hole his loss left in my heart would be impossible to fill. 

My daughter and a good friend got together and knew exactly how big the hole was and just what it would take to fill it. Come to find out, it was exactly the size of an eight week old basset hound puppy.