My wife and I don't have pets - especially a dog - for a myriad of reasons. One of the biggest reasons is that with my travel and my wife's work schedule, we wouldn't be able to properly care for a dog. We would also have to work around dealing with someone either looking after the dog or kenneling the dog if we were to take off for a short trip on the spur of the moment. Plus, I grew up along a busy highway in Central Iowa and the agony and heartbreak of losing a dog that wandered onto the road only to get hit and killed was more than I could bear at times when I was younger. I've always said that kids and dogs are great, as long as they belong to someone else. Our next door neighbors had a dog who became my little buddy over the past few years. This past week, they had to put him down. This is the story of my buddy, Charles.
Charlie was actually his given name, Chuck was his nickname, but I always called him Charles. Charles was a Beagle/Bichon mix (that had to be interesting when his parents mated) and he had that beagle body with big paws and the husky bark, but his hair had that bichon quality to it. He could get shaggy and once every three or four months our neighbors would have to take him to get groomed. Somehow and somewhere along the way over the past few years, Charles and I became good friends. He was a fascinating dog with his quirks, regimens and routines. The neighbors saw the relationship that Charles and I had and it wasn't long before I was referred to as the "Dog Whisperer."
Actually, there may be something to this "Dog Whisperer" thing with me. A number of years ago a young couple had moved into the house on the other side of us and they had a Shih Tzu by the name of Ralphie. Ralph and I seemed to hit it off the first day we met. I don't know what it was, but Ralph would go nuts whenever he'd see me. I didn't give him treats, but I would sort of get him on his back and scratch his chest and under his chin. It was like he was saying, "Dude, keep that up and I'll just stay here as long as you like." Ralphie would be out in their sunroom and see me out in our backyard and he'd whine and carry on until they had to let him out on his chain for me to come over and futz with him.
One morning, I happened to be in our backyard and the neighbor's wife was getting ready to put Ralph out on his chain after they had woken up. As she bent over to pick up the chain, Ralph saw me and proceeded to jump on her back and fly over the top of her and bounded out the door. She was screaming thinking Ralphie was going to take off, but he made a beeline right over to me. I picked him up, admonished him as I took him back to her, scratching under his chin as he melted in my arms.
Sometimes, Ralphie would get away from the neighbors and just tear around the backyard in circles as they tried to corral him. More than once I was asked to come over and get Ralph back to them. I'd say something like, "Ralph, stay there." And he'd lay down in the grass and allow me to pick him up to take back to the neighbors.
The neighbors eventually moved away, they had a couple of kids and Ralphie sort of got aggressive toward their young son one day. They decided that Ralph needed a new home. They found an older lady who could take Ralph for them. I didn't hear much about Ralphie after that and I'm guessing that he's probably not doing hot laps around a back yard any longer.
We had another young couple that moved in after the first couple left and we became good friends with them. However, they had two Chihuahuas. Yippie, squirrelly, perpetually timid Chihauhuas. I would playfully torture the male Chihuahua picking it up by its body harness to where the wife would scream at me. I knew it didn't hurt the dog - it would have been the same thing as picking it up under its chest. But it was sort of fun to make her go apeshit if she thought I was hurting her baby. (And I wasn't.)
That couple, too, moved away, had a couple kids and decided that they needed to get rid of the Chihuahuas as they were also getting egressive toward their kids. I really didn't care what happened to those dogs. They were both sort of annoying.
Other neighbors have had dogs that I had grown fond of. There was a young couple who lived down the street from us who had a beautiful yellow Lab. I started to get treats that I'd give to the dog when they would walk by on evenings.
A lady who lives a couple three houses from us had a couple of small dogs that she'd walk with daily. I'd give them treats, too, and they couldn't get past our house without stopping and literally rolling in our yard waiting for me to come out with a treat. (Unfortunately, one of the dogs had to be put down about a month ago due to health complications.)
But there have been a couple single ladies who lived in the neighborhood who have had dogs that I swear they used to make people feel sorry for them. After our friends with the chihuahuas moved out, an older single lady moved in with a Shih Tzu. I know there was more than a handful of times where I would get calls from her asking if I could help corral her dog. This lady was annoying in her own way and I used to think the dog was trying to run away from her on purpose. One time after chasing and corralling her little Shih Tzu about a block and a half away from the house, as I was taking the dog back to the lady I consoled the dog. "Yeah, I know why you're running away," I told the dog as I was scratching its neck. "And I don't blame you. But, you have to go back. Sorry..."
Another lady down the street from us had a Boxer. She, too - I swear - allowed the dog to get out of the house just to get attention from the neighbors. She would plead with the neighbors to help her get her rambunctious dog. After a couple times of her doing that, I wasn't going to fall for that ploy again. I basically told her, "If you're going to keep letting the dog run like that and it gets hit by a car, I'm not going to feel sorry for you." She and I are civil to one another, but far from being neighborly. She still has the boxer. And it doesn't run free like it did.
Our neighbors with Charlie moved in about six years ago and they also had another dog, Leo. Leo was a little mutt that was a true rescue dog. Leo was blind and deaf, and the neighbor's daughter found him along a gravel road after someone had obviously let him out to die on his own. My neighbors took Leo in and kept him for the final years of his life. They probably let Leo hang on a little too long - they even admitted that to me later on. And that's something that really bugs me about people who hang on too long to a dog when it's obvious that the dog needs to be put down because it's more humane to do that than to have it live another day because the person who owns the dog is selfish.
That happened with me years ago with the mother of an old girlfriend of mine. My girlfriend's mother had a small Poodle that lived to be about 19 years old. It was blind, deaf, feeble, had no teeth, but my girlfriend's mom refused to put the dog down. It was excruciating to me to see that dog suffer like it did because the lady wouldn't allow it to die with dignity. I don't know why she let that dog live that way and the dog finally died in its sleep. Thank god...
That same girlfriend had a Poodle of her own, too, except she didn't frou-frou the dog's hair to make it look like a prissy little dog. This dog also was blind, but he was in great shape. That dog and I became really close. He also was my little buddy. I was amazed that even though he couldn't see (due to a genetic condition), he could get around quite easily. He was fun to play with and to take in the car. If I was seated watching television, he'd come up to me, jump up next to me, and then settle in for a nap while I watched TV. I swear to god that the only reason that girlfriend and I stayed together as long as we did was because of the dog. But the dog passed away when it was at the veterinarian's office as they were trying to treat it for heart congestion. He was 14. I was devastated when he died. My girlfriend and I pretty much broke up for good after the dog died. It turned out the only thing we had in common was our love for the dog.
That's another reason why my wife and I don't have a dog. After I told her that story years ago, she's worried that if we had a dog and it died, I would leave her.
She's joking. (I think.)
Now, Charles was a unique dog. I don't know if I've ever been around a dog who had as much personality as Charlie did. My neighbor used to say, "If he had opposable thumbs, he'd be a person."
Charles was about 10 years old when he first came into our lives. He was the most mellow dog I think I've ever been around. Other dogs would see Charles and would start to bark their heads off at him. He'd just ignore them. I mean, completely ignore them. Some people who lived in the house behind our neighbors would have dogs. Their dogs would get aggressive when Charlie would be across the chain link fence from them. Charlie would just blow them off. He wasn't fazed in the least by a barking dog who was showing aggression.
Sometimes, he'd stop and exchange smells with the dog across the fence. If Charles liked the dog, his tail would wag in a circular fashion. If he didn't like the dog, he'd just go on his way.
After Leo was put down, we had gotten to the point with the neighbors that we trusted each other to keep house keys to check on things when either one of us were gone. But they also saw the relationship I had with Charles and started to ask if I could let him out if they were gone at one of their daughter's basketball games. If I was around, I had absolutely no problem doing that.
One of the first times I went over to their house to let Charles out, I let him back in from doing his duty and he always had to get a treat. I gave him his treat and told him that I'd see him later. As I started to walk toward the door, he looked at me as if he was saying, "Hey! Where you goin'? Don't you want to stay and hang out? Hey, we have beer over here! Stay here and have a beer with me! I'll even show you where the beer is!"
Charles could do tricks - well, one trick. Our neighbor's daughter was 10 when Charlie came into their lives - he was basically the first pet the family had. She worked with him during his formative years to do this one trick - "Sit Pretty". When I first started to bring treats over for Charles, the neighbors would say, "Tell him to sit pretty." So, when I'd say, "Sit pretty, Charles," he would sit on his hauches and raise up with his front paws in the air. But after awhile I could sense with Charlie that he thought it was pretty stupid and demeaning. He'd look at me like he was saying, "Just give me the friggin' treat, asshole!"
Our neighbors put up a nice wooden fence a year or so after they moved in to give Leo and Charles a place to walk around the yard without being on a chain. Once the fence went up, Charles had a routine. He'd immediately go over to the fence gate next to our driveway and hang out there for a moment to see if I was just over the fence so he could whimper for a treat. If I wasn't there, then he'd take off on a walk around the perimeter of the yard, stopping to pee every once in a while, but continuing on sniffing anything and everything. Sometimes, he'd diverge about 10 to 12 feet off his perimeter path and take a dump. Then he'd go back to the perimeter and complete the lap around the yard. He was certainly a creature of habit. To me, it was very fascinating.
After awhile, the neighbors would feel comfortable enough to allow Charles to come over to our house. I'd let him through the gate and walk with him to our back door. I'd go in and get a treat for him, but he would be impatient and let me know that he was hungry with that deep, throaty bark of his. After bringing the treat out for him, I'd put it on the concrete of our driveway and he'd chomp it down like he hadn't been fed in days. I would always joke with the neighbors, "It's sort of sad that your dog has to come over to our house to get fed..."
More often than not, Charles would finish his treat (usually an organic dog treat from Trader Joe's - he loved the chicken and peanut butter treats they had up until a couple years ago), then he'd take a walk in our yard. He'd walk over to the fence on the other side of our yard and start his perimeter patrol there. We have a peony bush near the fence row and he'd stop at the bush, sniff around it, then lift his leg to pee on it. Then he'd continue on his patrol around the perimeter of our yard, going along the brick-walled berm that we had, then back up past our rose garden to our back door. Then he'd instinctively go back over to the gate at the neighbors house and walk back into his backyard. Once back over there, he'd sort of gallop back up to their deck like he was saying, "Me? I've been in the backyard all the time! I wasn't over at the neighbors!"
After awhile, Charles figured out that he didn't need to walk the perimeter of our yard. Things must have been pretty secure in his mind. He'd come over, demand his treat, eat it, then make a bee-line over to the peony bush, take a leak, then come right back past me standing by our back door watching all of this, back through the gate and up the walk to the neighbor's back deck. My neighbor used to refer to our peony bush as Charles' "pee-on-me" bush.
If the neighbors had to go out of town for a day or two, they'd usually board Charlie or have their dog groomer come over to feed him and take him outside. I said, "You guys don't have to do that. If we're home, we can take care of him." Well, let's rephrase that - I can take care of him. That usually meant getting out of bed at 5:30, getting dressed, and heading over next door to wake him up - he loved sleep - and letting him out. Then after he was let back in, he got his treat and I would go back home to go back to bed. If I didn't like the dog as much as I did, I wouldn't have even considered doing that. I didn't really do it for the neighbors as much as I did it for Charles.
It was getting to the point where I would go over to let Charles out and he just linger at the gate, thinking that I was following him and we'd head over to our house for a treat. After he sort of figured that I wasn't going to let him over to our yard, he'd start on his perimeter walk. Sometimes it would be quick - especially if it were cold or rainy (he didn't like anything wet) - other times, he'd dawdle around the perimeter of the neighbor's yard for as much as 15 minutes.
Feeding Charlie was sometimes confounding. His food bowl would be full of dry dog food, but he wouldn't eat if the neighbors weren't around. He may go for a full day or longer without eating because he would sense no one was around and I'm sure it took him out of his comfort zone. Finally, my wife and I got to thinking how we could get Charles to eat. I noticed that he had no problem eating treats off the concrete of driveway or sidewalk. I wondered if we could put some food down on the linoleum floor in the neighbor's kitchen to see if he'd eat. Well, it worked. And worked famously. I'd put dry dog food on the floor and he'd just lap it up. I was sure to clean the floor after Charlie finished eating to hide any remnants of dog slobber. The neighbors were none-the-wiser, but just happy that Charles was eating when they were gone. We never told the neighbors how we were able to get Charlie to eat - until a few days after he was gone. They laughed about it.
I started to notice that Charles was losing his sight about 3 years ago. He never ever barked at me - except when he wanted to come over to our house or if he wanted a treat. But he was over in the opposite corner of the yard one morning and I appeared over the fence. Charles turned and looked my way and then started to bark and then run toward me like he was fending off an intruder. Now, he NEVER did ANYTHING like that. I asked the neighbor a couple days later if Charlie was having trouble seeing. I could tell that the question bothered my neighbor as he just sort of shook his head and hunched his shoulders like he didn't want to talk about it.
More health problems started to arise for Charles - he had nearly all his teeth pulled except for three in the very back of his mouth. The last 18 months of treats, I had to break them up for him in smaller pieces so he'd be able to chomp them up. He began to lose his hearing and you literally had to shake him to wake him up to take him outside. He was getting lethargic, not much pep in his step, wanting to do nothing but eat, sleep, poop and pee.
Even though it was getting hard for Charles to see and hear, somehow he would know when I would come home. He used to be able to hear when our garage door would open, or when I'd pull up in our driveway, but once his hearing started to go, I don't know how on earth he knew when I would come home. I don't know if he felt the vibration from our garage door open up, or felt the vibration of me closing my car door, but he would always seem to know when I got home. He'd get up and go to the back door where the neighbors would let him out and he'd immediately come over to the fence. I was usually taking a couple three trips between the car and the house and I'd hear him whining for attention and treats over the fence. "Charles," I'd yell out. "You are such a pant load!" That was my favorite phrase when it came to Charles.
Over the past year, my wife and I were both coming to the reckoning that Charles wouldn't be with us much longer. We had hoped that the neighbors would recognize it - thankfully, they did - and they wouldn't allow him to linger on and suffer. But he was still in pretty remarkable shape for his age - he turned 16 at the end of last November. But one weekend last fall, the neighbors had taken off for an overnight stay and asked me to go over and let Charles out. I went over about noon one of those days and Charlie was lying on his side, he tongue hanging out of his mouth. (His tongue would flop out of the side of his mouth after most of his teeth had to be pulled.) I immediately thought the worst. I had never seen him lay on his side like that, and with his tongue out it was the classic look of death.
I reached down to touch him and he didn't move. I thought, "Oh shit! Great! The neighbors are gone and their dog died in my care."
I leaned down to stroke his body and I petted him on his side and said, "Oh, Charles. Jeez..."
And he snapped out of his deep sleep and jumped right up, tail wagging and he started to stretch. He was fine and dandy. "Jesus Christ, Charles," I exclaimed. "You just scared the living shit out of me!" Oh man. My heart was pounding for minutes after that happened. I went back to our house and told my wife what had happened. She thought it was pretty funny. And, in hindsight, it was.
Recently, however, Charles just sort of seemed out of sorts. A couple Sundays ago, it was a nice day and the neighbors were out in front of their house working on stuff and they had Charles chained up with them. My wife remarked to me, "Charlie didn't look good to me." He still ate a treat that we gave him, but I had to concede that he didn't seem himself.
The following evening, Charlie had a seizure around 9 p.m. They ended taking him to the doggy emergency room and got him some pills to help alleviate the problem. But they were up all night as Charles couldn't get comfortable after they got him home. They - along with their daughter who came over to help - walked Charlie around the backyard most of the night.
I was getting ready to go on the road that next morning and my neighbor called me up. "Charlie had a bad night," he told me with a quiver in his voice. "We're out in the backyard and I think you need to come over and say goodbye."
I immediately called my wife at her work and said, "I think this is it with Charles. They just asked me to come over to say goodbye."
My neighbor and Charlie were in the back yard, Charlie was on a leash and my neighbor was leading him around. Charles was having trouble walking and he was completely out of it, probably thanks to the drugs they gave him at the emergency room. My neighbor was telling me about the bad night they had with Charlie and that they knew it wouldn't be long for him. "We let Leo stay on a little too long," my neighbor said as I connected with Charlie one last time, petting him and scratching under his chin. "We're not going to do that with Charlie."
As tough as it was for me to see Charles that way, it had to be worse for my neighbors - and by ten-fold. As I said, this was really their only pet. Their daughter had gotten a rescue dog a couple years ago - a lab/greyhound mix - and their son and his fiancée had gotten a golden retriever three or four years ago. I had tears in my eye as I gave my neighbor a hug and told him to hang in there. But he knew I was having trouble too as I took one last look at Charles and walked back home. "You hang in there, too," he said with a shaky voice. Jeez, grown men getting blubbery over a dog...
I got a cryptic message from my neighbor the next day saying that Charlie was resting easy and not pacing any longer. I texted him back saying, "Oh good. I was wondering what was going on." But then my wife and I figured out a couple days later that was my neighbor's way of saying, "We put Charlie down."
It's only been about 10 days since he's been gone, but I still find myself looking over the fence thinking that Charles will be just over there staring blankly at the fence waiting for me to acknowledge him. We met up with the neighbors last Sunday for a toast to the memory of Charlie. We laughed about his idiosyncrasies, his mellow demeanor, how big of a mooch he was, and how he loved all of us unconditionally.
My neighbor's wife said to me just last night, "You're going to have to put a bell or something outside to let us know when you get home. Our alarm isn't around any longer."
I don't know if the neighbors are going to get another dog. Quite actually, I don't know if they want another dog because they certainly broke the mold with Charles. I just don't think they could find a dog with the personality, characteristics and mannerisms that Charles had. He was certainly one of a kind.