He was found as a puppy, injured on the side of the road, by a man named Carlo Soriani and nursed back to health; the Sorianis decided to name him 'Fido', which means Faithful. Fido became very attached to Carlo. He would follow Carlo to the bus stop every morning, and when Carlo came back on the bus, he found Fido waiting for him. This continued for two years.
Then in December of 1943, there was a terrible bombardment of the town where Soriani lived; factories, including the one at which Soriani worked, were hit, and Carlo Soriani died in the bombardment. Fido waited for him to get off the bus. He waited and waited. Eventually he went home, but the next day, he was back at the bus stop waiting for Soriani to get off the bus. And every day for fourteen years, he went back to the bus stop and waited. He became an institution in the town, being profiled in Italian magazines and given a medal by the mayor. He became known in the English-speaking world when Time magazine did an article on his story in 1957. When Fido died on June 9, 1958, it was national front page news in Italy.
Apparently if you go to the town of Borgo San Lorenzo, in Tuscany, you can go to the Piazza Dante and find a statue that was erected to Fido while he was still alive, with the inscription in Italian:
To Fido, Example of Faithfulness
