The Guardian

5/29/2010 – 4/29/2021

How do you spell “guardian”? I spell it: BOSCO.

Bosco has been our guardian, not a “guardian Angel” but a guardian on the “wall” to protect and watch over. Guardian definition is, “one who protects, guards and preserves. One who cares for the person and property of another.”

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”

- Roger Caras

A true guardian may also be both unsolicited and unrelated to any one situation. Instead of helping someone we care about cope with a specific challenge, we may find ourselves providing them with a more general form of emotional sustenance that prepares and strengthens them for challenges yet to come.

Bosco has been a true Guardian since he was a pup. Not just, always worrying where I am, following around the house and staying close in the yard, but so much more. This is a 95 pound pup who had no fear of chasing a 400 lb bear, and more than once! Bosco ran off many bears on our daily walks in the woods, he loved the one who went up the tree ( of course that scared me in case a protective Mama was still hanging). He treed a cougar and of course had fun keeping the squirrels up the trees where they belong.

Bosco enjoyed going to work to share love and look over the elderly in wheelchairs. He also loved to be with me if I ran an EMS call, now it was not routine to take him. Once when I had him with me and a call dropped, he was very good staying in the car while I was gone. But, when I returned and went into the station putting things away, he joined me, to find him sitting in the front seat of the rescue squad, ready to go on the next call. Bosco would have made a good rescue dog.

Bosco was deprived by not being in a home with full time children, he was the “pup who wanted a boy for Christmas”. When the grand children were here, he was happy. He would stay close where they played and watch over.

Bosco loved like many dogs, to run on the beach, swim in the water, chase a ball, take walks, and loved people. He would eat anything and loved everything we had, daily shot of whip cream at morning coffee to licking the ice cream bowl at night. Our furry friends live such a short time in our lives, over the years having to say goodbye to so many. I have friends that have told me “I can’t do this again”. But the friendship, love, companionship and joy my buddy has brought me, was so worth it.

“Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives.”

John Galsworthy

It is better to have love and lost than to not have loved at all. My life has been enriched by Bosco.

RIP my little Guardian Buddy, I will miss you sleeping by my side but will always be in my heart.