Fido: Fourteen Years at the Bus Stop

The true story of an Italian street dog who waited every evening for a bus that could never bring his friend home.

A whimper in the ditch

Fido was a street mongrel, part Pointer. The Pointer is a hunting breed, made to find a scent, freeze, and hold perfectly still for as long as it takes.

One winter night in 1941, near Borgo San Lorenzo in the hills outside Florence, a brick kiln worker named Carlo Soriani heard a whimper in a roadside ditch. Inside was a small stray puppy, injured and alone.

Carlo carried him home. He and his wife, Santina, nursed him back to health.

They named him Fido. In Latin, it means faithful.

Every morning, every evening

Carlo took the bus to work each day. Every morning, Fido walked with him to the bus stop in the village square. Every evening, he went back to the same spot and waited, nose in the air, until the bus came round the corner and Carlo stepped off.

Then the two of them walked home together.

For two years, that was their routine. Every working day.

December 30th, 1943

Italy was at war. On December 30th, 1943, Allied bombers struck Borgo San Lorenzo, where Carlo worked.

That evening, the bus came back to the square. The doors opened. The passengers stepped off, one by one, until the last of them was gone.

Carlo was not among them. He had been killed in the bombing.

Fido waited in the square until long after dark. The next evening, he came back. And the next.

Fourteen years

Winter came. Then summer. The war ended. The village rebuilt. People moved on with their lives.

Fido did not. Every evening, he walked to the bus stop, watched every passenger step off, and then walked home alone.

One year. Then five. Then ten.

A town notices

Slowly, the people of the town came to know the dog at the bus stop. Then the newspapers found him, and his story spread across Italy and beyond.

In 1957, a statue in his honour was unveiled in Borgo San Lorenzo, and Fido was there to see it. The mayor awarded him a gold medal.

The end of the wait

Fido died in June 1958, still waiting. He had kept his evening appointment for about fourteen years, thousands of evenings at the same stop.

He was buried near the cemetery where Carlo lies. His statue still stands in Borgo San Lorenzo.

Why we still tell his story

A man found a dog in a ditch and named him faithful. The dog spent fourteen years proving him right.

Fido at a glance

• Found: winter 1941, near Borgo San Lorenzo, Tuscany, Italy
• Breed: street mongrel, part Pointer
• Owner: Carlo Soriani, a brick kiln worker
• Waited: every evening at the village bus stop, from December 1943 to 1958
• Died: June 1958
• Remembered by: his statue in Borgo San Lorenzo (1957)

Illustrations on this page are artistic interpretations inspired by the true story of Fido, not historical photographs.