Brutus is gone, but pet's owner says 'my heart feels fulfilled' after campaign gave him a loving sendoff

Kelly Yahnke says he gave his dog Brutus the best send off he could by getting as many people to pet him as possible until Saturday morning when the five-year-old dog's health declined and he had to be put down.

"He'd spin in circles, and that's [how] you know if [he] wanted to go outside," Yahnke said. "So you know, coming out in the morning today was a little rough."

Brutus was a terminally ill Rottweiler in Regina that became a local sensation for a campaign Yahnke started to get him 1,000 pets from people before he died. The two of them were stationed at the Pet Valu in Southland Mall, where passersby could give Brutus a pet.

"I love my animals more than anything, you know. This was the best, best thing I could think [of] from the bottom of my heart to do for my dog, and it just turned out fantastic," Yahnke said.

Yahnke says he and his family are doing OK now, but the process of getting Brutus his final gestures of love made it feel like he wasn't going through it all alone.

"It was almost like sharing the grief with everybody, you know, and just being able to do that, like, it's hard, [but] my heart feels fulfilled," he said.

"With everything going on in this world, you know, you kind of lose faith in humanity a little bit," Yahnke said. "This really brought out the wholesomeness and the genuine people."

About two weeks ago Yahnke took Brutus to the vet with a swollen neck. It turned out to be cancer in his lymph nodes, and he was given three weeks to live.

Yahnke said Saturday he hoped to have Brutus for one more day, but he changed his mind when he noticed Brutus was breathing faster than usual and seemed worse off. He says they only spent about 20 minutes at the Pet Valu on Saturday morning.

Shortly after that, Yahnke took Brutus to the vet, where the dog was  euthanized.

Yahnke says he was surprised by the number of people who showed up to pet Brutus — he estimated the dog got 700 pets throughout the many visits to the Pet Valu—  and left him with "no words to say but thank you."

"I didn't expect it to blow up the way it did and [I] thought it was awesome," he said. 

He says the donations people made helped cover some of the expenses.

Now, a framed photo of Brutus sits perched on top of a shelf in Yahnke's home.