Frasier's Best Friend 'Eddie' Dies
MONDAY JUNE 26, 2006 04:00 PM EDT

By Pamela Warrick

Moose, with Kelsey Grammer on set

Photo by: Everett Collection  

Moose, the feisty Jack Russell terrier who played Eddie on TV's Frasier,
has died, his trainer, Mathilde Halberg, tells PEOPLE.

"He was 16-and-a-half years old, and he just had an incredible charisma
and was a such a free spirit," said Halberg. Moose, considered the Lassie
of the '90s, died Thursday night of old age at Halberg's Los Angeles-area
home.

Moose retired from showbiz when he was 10 and was replacd by a
younger lookalike named Enzo for the final two seasons of Frasier.

Although he also starred in the 2000 Frankie Muniz-Kevin Bacon feature
My Dog Skip (as the older Skip), he was best known for stealing scenes
from Kelsey Grammer on the long-running Emmy-winning NBC sitcom.

"He was always trying to put Frasier in uncomfortable circumstances," said
his trainer, who had rescued him in the early 1990s.

"I saved him from the pound. His owners called me as a last resort,"
Halberg recalled. "He was extremely mischievous, always escaping,
chewing up things and running off. When he killed a neighbor's cat and
chased some horses, that was it."

Not that anyone who owns a Jack Russell would find such behavior
surprising. "But then," remembered his trainer, "he began his career, and
he will never be forgotten."