It has been almost 10 years since Bashur the dog left a war zone in Iraq for a quiet home in the Chicago suburbs, and in that time, a lot has changed.
Once small enough to fit in the palm of the Army officer who rescued her from a life in the wild, she has grown to a 110-pound hulk. Once attuned to the faint noise of distant but rapidly approaching rockets, her radar now locks onto deer and foxes.
But one thing is still the same. Bashur remains a paragon of faithfulness — only now, the center of her world is the officer's father, Hampshire car dealer John Fenzel.
"She's a character," Fenzel said the other day. "Not a lovey-dovey lap dog, but super loyal."
In 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, the Tribune wrote about Bashur's adoption by then Army Maj. Mike Fenzel. His unit discovered the tiny pup during its push toward the oil city of Kirkuk; an intelligence officer scooped her from the roadside grass and brought her along to a base where the unit set up.
Named after the village into which Fenzel's unit parachuted, Bashur and her constant presence irritated some soldiers but charmed Fenzel, who moved her into his room to recuperate after she was struck by a vehicle.
They formed a tight bond, and when Fenzel's unit prepared to leave Iraq, he hustled to find a way to send her to his dad's place in Sleepy Hollow. After being turned down by the Air Force and private shipping companies, he enlisted the help of the International Veterinary Hospital in Kuwait and got his beloved companion flown to Illinois.
She soon settled into a routine that has lasted to this day. She accompanies John Fenzel to his Chrysler dealership whenever he heads into work and she hangs out in the showroom, a stern watchdog who rarely leaves his side. When the day is over, it's back to Sleepy Hollow, where Bashur has the run of three-quarters of an acre, bordered by an electric fence.
"She'll ferret out foxes and skunks," Fenzel said. "She knows where the deer are. She went after a coyote once when I was walking her."
Bashur, whose floppy ears and red and white coat give her the appearance of an Anatolian shepherd, endured a health scare recently when her stomach twisted, cutting off circulation to it.
It's a potentially fatal condition, but Fenzel acted quickly when he noticed Bashur losing weight and acting fatigued. An Aurora veterinarian performed emergency surgery and the dog soon recovered.
As for Mike Fenzel, the officer who took in Bashur, he went on to serve two stints in Afghanistan, postings that were more intense and violent than his time in Iraq (he was featured in a 2008 Wall Street Journal story about officers who write letters to the families of soldiers killed in battle).
He had bent Army regulations to care for Bashur — the military's General Order No. 1 prohibits troops from keeping pets, though commanders sometimes let it slide in the interest of morale — but said the harsh conditions of Afghanistan made a similar act there out of the question.
"There really was no place for anything other than a military working dog with a specific job," he said.
Mike Fenzel is now 46, a colonel with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., with a doctorate in national security studies. Childless during his Iraq posting, he and his wife now have four kids.
The family gets back to Sleepy Hollow about once a year, and though Bashur is generally frosty toward strangers, she remembers Mike Fenzel when he gives the whistle he always used to summon her.
"She'll look up immediately," he said. "The tail works overtime. She immediately snuggles up and her ears go down. If she's outside, she wants to play. She's older now but she becomes a little bit of a puppy."
And just as she comforted Mike Fenzel in Iraq, Bashur has helped Fenzel's father weather stressful times in the car trade. The economic slowdown made a tough business tougher, especially when Chrysler eliminated hundreds of dealerships in 2009. Fenzel Motor Sales kept its franchise.
Head-clearing walks with Bashur helped John Fenzel, now 81, make it through many a difficult day. The ritual has continued even as the economy has improved, a union of friends brought together by a gesture of wartime grace.
"There are still problems, of course, but you can always look down at her and say, 'All right. We'll get this thing solved,'" John Fenzel said. "It's good to have her around."
Twitter @JohnKeilman
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