Charles E. Dog

It it so hard to say goodbye to our pets. And yet we must, the pain a reminder of how good the good times were, the tears making the chuckles and the smiles that much more fond in our memories. Right now though, it seems like all pain and tears.

For the last year or more, we've been living on borrowed time with our dog, friend, and pseudo-son Charlie. We had sensed the end coming when in early August 2020, we took him to the vet because he had been losing a lot of weight and clearly was not well. As the masked vet explained to us as we sat in our vehicle, being unable to accompany him inside because of COVID, the ultrasound revealed tumors on multiple organs: metastasis. 

We feel extraordinarily fortunate that we had a reasonably good year in which to say goodbye to Charlie. In fact, we called him the Energizer Chuckie. Sporadically, he would have a few bad days that made us fear making that final call at the vet, only to bounce back with a vengeance and have another few great weeks. In the end, the bad days were too much for his frail little body and today we had to say goodbye. We finally lost him at about 16 years of age to cancer.

 

Charlie: The Sweetest Face

Ann rescued Charlie before I came into their lives. She chose him because he really needed someone after three failed adoptions and one of the world's cutest faces didn't hurt, Ann being the sucker for a cute dog. Despite his insecurities about men, Charlie adopted me as his protector some eleven years ago and we have been best buddies since. I'm going to miss the hell out of him, despite his being a giant pain in the ass at times, especially in recent months.

And by pain in the ass, I mean Pain in the Ass, capital P, capital A. He had an anxious nature that would not let him settle down if he were not nestled into a chair beside one of us, meaning that he would pace for hours at a time, click, click, click incessantly across our vinyl hardwood plank floors.

In the infirmity of his old age, his back end would no longer propel him up into a chair beside one of us, so he would nag each of us ad nauseam until one of us would relent and consent to lift him up. And once settled, at random times, he would hop down and get on our last nerves, resuming his rounds of the house: Click, click, click! Click, click, click!

Chuck in a Jam

His poor eyesight, limited mobility, and poorly working rear end was sometimes a source of humor. We should be condemned for giggling about his misfortunes, but damn, at times his predicaments were funny as hell! Just look at him wedged between the post and the fence above! Working rear end or semi-functional rear end aside, an intelligent dog might not have decided to do a u-turn between two immovable objects. Similarly, we have found him wedged behind and under furniture.

And then there was the night at 3:30am that he woke us up bitching—and by us, I mean me because there is almost nothing that wakes Annie in the night, while I awake at the slightest sound—so I went to put him out on the assumption that he needed to pee. I opened the back door for him and he tried to go out between the opened door and the wall, missing the door opening altogether, ending up thoroughly perplexed at why he became wedged and could not exit the door.

I managed to extricate him from between the wall and the door and maneuver him outside. When he did not return after a minute or two as usual, I went outside in the dark to see what was going on, to find him stuck between the air conditioning unit and the house. I would have laughed my rear off, but it was 3:30am and I was grumpy at dealing with Charlie yet again, the silly little dog, my special friend.

His tricks were not limited to getting stuck either. We have vinyl plank flooring, which is an awesome choice for maintenance when you have dogs, but is a bit slick. As a long-haired dog, Charlie had long hairs growing between the pads on his feet that really messed up his traction if we didn't keep them trimmed. Couple that with the difficulty in controlling his hind legs and you might can imagine the results. Many was the time we would hear him moan softly our direction. We would then see him splayed out like a deer on ice, his four legs pointing the four compass directions. He would be unable to get up until one of us could rescue him, invariably me.

He was also prone to what we suspect were TIAs. We would find him often staring off into the distance seemingly utterly confused. After eating breakfast, he would come to the bedroom door (which we kept closed to keep our other dog confined and prevent her from eating his breakfast) to be let in.

I would go to let him in only to find that he would be at the linen closet door in the hall, staring at it, waiting for it to open. So intent on that door was he, that he would fail to see me open the bedroom door. Likewise, at times we would find him in the bathroom staring at the toilet. Making light of this I would tell him to keep a close eye on the toilet and to make sure that it did not move. It never did!

Beyond this, he had two other endearing traits (sense the sarcasm in that phrase?). He would stand at the back fence and bark on speculation that the neighbor's dog might be outside, a rare circumstance. This would immediately earn him an all-expense-paid vacation in the house while the rest of us were outdoors. He never did connect his barking with being exiled to the house.

In addition to the barking, he endeared himself to us by gifting us with Chucknuggets™ in his old age. Even with the back door open, he would often walk into the dining room and do his imitation of a canine Pez dispenser right on the dining room floor. There is no joy in coming out of the bedroom in the morning and having to walk carefully to avoid potential land mines. Damn him!

Despite his cantankerous ways, we loved the old guy insanely.

  

Sway Back, Pot Belly, and Stubby Legs

Charles, Charlie, Chuck, Chuckie, or The Chuckster was a one of a kind rescue dog. Among his other monikers, Prince Charles was the name that Ann's father Bob bestowed upon him and preferred. And in homage to his rotund belly, though he was never fat, we often called him Chunk, even though towards the end, he was markedly skinny. Since the day of his diagnosis, we had been trying to keep weight on him with extra dog treats, eggs in his food bowl, and so forth, luxuries that he had not had before. In the last couple of years, getting him to eat was a twice-daily challenge and he continued to lose weight.

Baryshnikov Feet

A hypothetical Springer Spaniel-Bassett Hound mix, he would never win any beauty contests: an odd-looking, pot-bellied, sway-backed little dog who looked just like a black and white spaniel, with stubs for legs and out-turned Bassett forepaws. These feet we called quite irreverently Baryshnikov feet, with apologies to Misha, after first position in ballet.

Despite his stubby little legs, he was surprisingly fast and agile when younger. We always smiled when he would tear after a squirrel quick as a lightning bolt, with never a chance to catch the squirrel. Said squirrel would inevitably be laughing from the safety of a black locust tree as Charlie darted back and forth searching for the squirrel just above his head. In some respects, Chuck wasn't the brightest pup in his litter.

Favorite Spot on the Outdoor Sofa

Besides losing weight in recent months, he was really slowing down. In addition to tottering around at times seemingly without balance, he could no longer hop up on our bed unassisted, leading to many mornings when he sat in the floor beside the bed moaning at us to be let up. Alas, the purchase of a new bed saw the dogs banned to their beds on the floor, so his inability to spring up on the bed ended up being a good thing, for earlier in his life, he counted our bed as his personal fiefdom.

Despite his limited mobility, for a few months at any rate, he still could hop himself up on the low sofa on the front patio and many was the day that we would find him there, panting and baking in the sun, lost in whatever thoughts were going through his small brain.

A Favorite Place: Beside Me in a Chair

In the final months, he insisted on sitting in the chair with one of us when we were in the living room and we relented on the no-dogs-on-the-furniture rule. Prior to this, he was an expert in what we called "interior decoration." He had perfected the art of scratching at his dog bed in the living room and scooting it across the slick floor as he did so.

He would, at times, spend a half an hour scratching at the damn bed moving it back and forth across the room, rearranging his furniture. He would invariably get his bed stuck under the piano pedals and then look plaintively for one of us (always me) to rescue his bed.

So Anxious, He Would Hide in the Corner

I came into Charlie's life when he was a youngish dog, four to five years old: really who knows with rescues exactly how old they are? He and I met when Ann and I had our first date. We stayed at Ann's house and enjoyed the picnic that I packed at her kitchen counter because thunderstorms cancelled our outing to a nearby mountain park.

Ann had warned me beforehand that Charlie had an issue with strangers and men in particular, so I took great pains not to look at him and not to put myself in a threatening position around him. That's hard for me because I am 6'-4" and pretty much always the biggest person in the room.

Despite my precautions and care to stay away from him, Charlie would not stop barking and was really intruding on our date. Ann had found that putting Charlie on a leash would give him a sense of security and quell the barking. Accordingly, she put the leash on him and positioned him on the other side of the island from me where I couldn't see him and where hopefully, I would be less of a threat to him. He did quiet down.

As Ann recounts it, she became mortified once she started smelling poop and at first, she thought it was from the cat litter box around the corner in the laundry room, the litter box that she had taken great pains to clean just before our date. She thought it was the cats until she looked down to her right to see Charlie hauled back against his leash, dropping a load right on the kitchen floor. In incomparable Ann fashion, she turned to me and quipped, "You scared the shit out of my dog!" Ice broken! The three of us have been inseparable since.

Always a Bed Hound

Charlie's fear clearly stemmed from a bonafide anxiety disorder, so bad that we considered giving him CBD to calm him. His anxiety manifested in many ways: being scared to go outside, being terrified of strangers, abhorring to ride in a car, sleeping under our bed or one of the chairs, hiding in a corner, and so forth. It was absolutely heartbreaking to see this.

After our first date, it took three months of me being at the house daily for Charlie to work up the courage to come up to me. He stole quietly up behind me as I sat in the floor of the living room listening to Ann and her father Bob harmonizing at Christmas carols at the piano. It is so sad that it took Charlie ninety days to come near enough to sniff me and ultimately nuzzle my arm when I stuck it out away from my body, always looking away from him.

Years later, he would come up to a new male stranger in 15 to 20 minutes, a vast improvement. Women were always easier for Charlie: it seems that he may have been maltreated by a man. Certainly men triggered more anxiety for him. Though all the way to the end he would still bark insanely and fearfully when a new person entered the house, even one such as me that he knew well. We measured progress in calming his anxiety in that he would settle fairly quickly and if the person were female, would approach in a couple of minutes.

Ultimately and in spite of his great fear of men, I would become his protector. I am always the biggest person in the room and when Charlie would become scared for whatever reason, he always sought refuge behind my legs. I think that this, in part, is why Charlie became my special friend. I have had many dogs in my life, but none that I held dearer than Charlie.

Charlie Coveted My Spot in the Bed

As I mentioned earlier, Chuck wasn't the canine equivalent of a rocket scientist, but he wasn't all that dumb either. When Carter was a stinky teenager with a pig sty of a room carpeted in obscene amounts of filthy and even clean clothes, dishes, and empty water bottles peeking out from everywhere, Charlie had his number.

Late at night, Carter, who thankfully lived behind a permanently closed bedroom door, liked to come in our room to say good night and would invariably leave his door open. While Carter was saying good night, Charlie would rouse himself from even the deepest of snoozes and stealthily make his way into Carter's room to avail himself of the doggie manna strewn about.

And each night after Carter retired to his room we would hear, "CHARLIE, GET OUT!! GET OUT, STUPID!!" Hmm, who was the stupid one?

Flying Nun Pose, with Apologies to Sally Field

Among his many endearing traits, one really tickled me. Charlie was famous for what we called his Flying Nun pose, with all apologies to Sally Field, whom I once met when I was in high school and she was filming Norma Rae on location in Opelika, the city adjoining Auburn where I lived. We would often find Charlie with his ears streaming out beside his head à la Sister Bertrille. It never failed to put a smile on my face.

"Chucking": No Shame in His Game

Like many dogs, Chuck reveled in what we called "chucking," a maneuver that he had perfected to the point that we felt the need to name it after him. He would launch himself at his bed, landing on his side and roll himself upside down. While making fake growls and biting at the air, he would wriggle back and forth, scrubbing his back into his bed, all his bits on display for the world to see. There was no shame in his game. I have no idea what he was doing, but it sure seemed that he was having a good time.

Charlie's dog bed, like many, had a removable slipcover that we could throw in the washer when it became too fragrant for us to stand. Unlike many, his had no zipper, so it was similar to a very large pillowcase, open on one end. Some nights in the dark, we would hear a lot of noise coming from his bed and in the dark, we could not tell what he was doing. He was famous for spending long periods of timing getting his bedding adjusted just so and at first, that's what we thought was happening: more interior decoration. I just about fell out laughing the first morning that I awoke to find him nestled in a knot between the slipcover and his bed, swaddled like the filling in a burrito. He would do this somewhat frequently in the winter months.

Chuck "Burrito"

In his earlier years when he still had the strength in his stubby legs to propel him onto our tall bed, we would often awake to find him buried in the middle of our pillows between us. Or we would find him under the covers with us. This was a dog who liked to be warm and comfortable when he slept. He had a series of jackets and sweaters to wear over the years and he loved them: it seems he was frequently cold despite a luxurious coat of fur.

Moreover, he had a great fondness for my side of the bed in those days. Ann says that prior to my arrival, Charlie used to sleep on my side of the bed. Whenever he would get into the bed, he would beeline for my pillow and lay on it, bury under it, or "chuck" right on it.

In the later years when he wanted into the bed when I was lying there reading, I would sometimes help him onto the bed, mostly to stifle the incessant moaning. He would not suffer to be picked up, but putting his forelegs up on the bed, he wanted assistance with his back end. As soon as he had struggled up on the bed, he was instantly in the warm spot that I had just vacated, despite having the rest of the king-sized bed to himself. He would act extremely miffed when I would move him out of my spot.

Potomac River: All Water Dog, All the Time

Half spaniel or so we guess, Charlie loved the water, filth, mud, and rolling in anything nasty. Coming home from a romp in the field behind our house in Virginia covered in stinking, putrid shit was a badge of honor for him. It always earned him a hosing off or a bath, which, being a water dog, was his idea of being tossed in the brier patch.

But best of all was the toweling off afterwards. That dog loved to be swaddled in a beach towel and be given a rub down, even to the point of standing patiently after coming inside from a potty break during our rainy season, most of our year in Oregon, to get his feet wiped off. And wiped off they needed to be, for Charlie never saw a patch of mud that he would not wallow in. And with long spaniel feathers on his feet and legs, he would invariably be a muddy walking disaster area.

Licker in Action

Charlie had a certified lick fetish, for lack of a more appropriate term. It probably stemmed from his submissive nature and it always went overboard. Once I found him staring out the glass patio door, licking away at the pane for several minutes. And each morning when I got out of bed, I could be assured that within one second, Charlie would be right there, laving my legs with his tongue and wagging his tail. In fact, if ever I had a bare patch of skin within reach, Charlie was on it instantly. Those who cannot abide to be licked would have hated him.

He seemed to find some comfort in licking, though I often found it annoying to play the Pied Piper walking through the house with a little dog lapping away at my legs. At times, I would wander all over the house just to see how long he would keep it up. He would never stop voluntarily.

Charlie and His Bella Kitty

His licking was not limited to humans either. We had a wicked little tortoise shell cat named Bella who spent an hour a day honing her nails to lethal sharpness and who would bend to no one's will. In spite of the great probability of cantankerous Bella totally slashing Charlie's face to shreds, she would let him pin her to the ground, one of his paws across her back to restrain her, and submit to his ministrations.

If we did not stop it, this could go on until her fur was positively wet and slicked down, with a few cowlicks poking out at odd angles. At times, the love fest would come to a crashing halt as Charlie's intentions shifted from paternalistic to amorous. We feared for his face at these times.

Charlie and His Favorite Squeak Toy

In his earlier years, he was a ball dog. He was never a stick dog nor a 100% ball dog like a retriever that will beg incessantly for a fetch partner. Charlie merely liked to chase a ball for a few throws at a time. It always surprised me how good at catching the ball in the air he was. When no fetch partner was at hand, we would often find Chuck amusing himself by tossing the ball up in the air to himself.

But in his later years when he was not steady on his feet, he seemed to lose interest in tennis balls and became an inveterate squeak dog. He loved any toy with a squeaker in it. The game was to find the toy in the middle of the night and squeak it for minutes on end. We had to put his toys away at bedtime so that we could sleep.

And while any toy with a squeaker would do, he had a little red one that was his favorite, a gift from our neighbor Barb, until it was supplanted by by a red- and white-striped candy cane toy, also a gift from Barb. We could toss all his squeak toys at once and he would invariably pick up that little red one. He loved to play fetch with that toy and just like his tennis balls, if nobody were around to throw it for him, he would throw it for himself.

Charlie "Found" a Cardboard Tape Roll

Not limited to his toys, Charlie's oral fixation extended to a lot of things, mostly smelly or messy. He was an inveterate napkin thief, making the rounds of the house after we had gone to bed searching for any stray paper napkin, which he would half-heartedly shred for us to find in the morning. The game it seemed was the hunt for contraband and not the shredding of said contraband.

Better than napkins though were trash items that we gave him "accidentally." He loved plastic water bottles and the cardboard rolls from paper towels. When he would find one in the floor "by accident," he would pick it up in his mouth and parade it around the house, wagging his head from side to side, proud of his "find." He had to show everyone in the room his new toy. He wouldn't chew them up; the point seemed to be to show off his hunting prowess.

Even more attractive to Charlie were my smelly clothes. When I would come home from a night in the kitchen at the restaurant, he would greet me at the back door and start in on licking my pants legs, which were invariably covered in all manner of food detritus.

My routine was to head upstairs immediately for a well-earned and much needed shower. In my closet, I would drop my filthy clothes before heading to the shower. If a sock were to miss the laundry basket and hit the floor, there Charles was to retrieve it and parade it around the bedroom so that Ann could tell him what a good boy he was.

It got so that some nights, I would just pitch him a gross and disgusting sock. He (and we, who are we kidding?) got a great kick out of that. Being on my feet for twelve to fourteen hours a day, I would wear out socks in weeks. When they got too far gone to be of service, we would tie two of them together as a special toy for Charlie, but they never got the reception from him that the stinky ones did.

As much of a score as a foul sock was, the prize of all prizes was one of my reeking baseball caps. He would pick up the hat by the snap closure in the back and parade it about. That was the ne plus ultra for Charlie; there was no more successful hunt than one that scored a hat. Many was the time that I would hand him my hat just to see how proudly he paraded it about the room!

Another great prize was one of our bedroom slippers or barring that, some dirty clothes filched out of a hamper or a closet. I cannot count the number of mornings in the winter that I would stick my feet out from under the warm covers to put them in my slippers, only to feel cold, wet, disgusting slipperiness instead of nice fluffy wool. I'm a slow learner, but I learned in time to put my slippers up on my bedside table instead of leaving them by the bed in the floor.

Begging for Treats

Charlie had other quirks as well and one of the most endearing (and also annoying) was his begging for treats. Before he left home for college, Carter taught Charlie to sit on his hind legs and rear up to be rewarded with a treat. Charlie then took that to an art form, waving his paws about over his head in an effort to look as cute as possible. Sometimes, he would lose his balance and topple over in the floor.

As food-motivated as he was, he came to associate the coffee bar in the kitchen with dog treats, probably because Ann would give him a treat near there from time to time, the coffee bar being next to the pantry where his treats lived. Each morning when either of us made coffee or refilled our cups, we would be subjected to the cuteness show. And by show, I mean Charlie could really make a pain in the ass of himself.

Begging was not necessarily limited to treats. For the most part, Charlie did not beg for human food and left us in peace to eat our meals. However in his last months, I made the mistake of letting him lick my oatmeal bowl clean one morning. After that, it was game on and he would hound me incessantly every time he saw a bowl in my hand. He became quite the pest and it was my own fault.

With Best Friend Grace

Charlie came a long way with his issues since I first met him and much of his progress with socialization and anxiety, we attribute to Grace, our boxer-shepherd mix. When Charlie was 6 or 7, we adopted Grace from a local shelter and from that point on, they became best friends. Grace helped Charlie chill out and she single-handedly taught him to play, head down, ass up, tail wagging violently, wiggling, and play barking. It was really sad that he never knew how to play with other dogs before Grace.

Still, he never learned how to pee like a boy dog, persistently making the rounds of his territory dribbling scent markers for all comers. No, he never did that, despite going on walks with Grace and watching her back up and squirt any interesting post, tree, or fire hydrant. And oddly enough, he never lifted his leg when peeing. He would stretch one out a little bit behind him and make a big puddle on the ground between his four legs, just another quirk of a quirky little dog.

Moving to Oregon

Grace also helped with cars. It is a cliché that most dogs love to ride in a vehicle. Grace would kill just to drive around the block in our neighborhood, but not Charlie. He was absolutely terrified of riding in the car to the point of becoming physically ill, quivering, drooling, and vomiting all over, after just minutes in the car. It helped him tremendously to have Grace along for the ride, and we would bring her along on Charlie's vet visits, just to help him relax.

For longer rides, the vet gave us a tranquilizer that would basically knock Charlie out and cause him to sleep through the trip. It beat having him vomit all over, but I always felt bad that he was stupefied for the whole trip. Ultimately, moving across the country from Virginia to Oregon helped him with his fear of cars. Not only did he have Grace to lie on in an extremely confined and cozy space from which he could not see out, but as scary as the outside world was when we stopped for pee breaks, the car became his safe spot where he could hide. We gave him a quarter of a tranquilizer the first day and none thereafter, a small victory for Charlie, with thanks to Grace.

One oddly quirky aspect of their relationship was that Charlie could dominate Grace by simply growling at her, the little dog lording it over the big one. This evolved into a crazy twice-daily ritual. At feeding time in the morning, I fed them side-by-side in the dining room. Charlie would not touch his food as long as Grace was wolfing down her breakfast, a matter of less than 60 seconds. As soon as she was finished and lifted her head from her bowl, Charlie would bark at her and start raising hell with her until she retreated to the bedroom. Then Charlie could eat or not as he saw fit.

At dinner time, Ann would feed them separately with Grace in the dining room and Chuck in the family room. In a replay from breakfast, Charlie would not touch his food until Grace was done with hers and he had has his bark at her. Only once she was cowering somewhere out of range would Charlie start in on his dinner, the odd little beast.

Grace Was One of Chuckie's Security Blankets

Grace helped Charlie in many other ways as well. But principally, she showed him that visitors to the house are not reasons to bark and hide, but reasons to celebrate. Though he still barked like crazy when anyone came into the house, especially me, he came to know several people and learn that he was safe with them. Among these people were good friends Don and Terry, Ann's parents Bob and Mary, and out here in Oregon, our neighbor Mary Jo who looks in on the dogs when we have to be away from the house.

Charlie Came to Trust Neighbor Mary Jo

Mary Jo loved Chuckie as much as we did and he could sense that. It also never hurt that MJ came to visit without a pocket full of treats. The photo above shows the two of them on the day that he was diagnosed with cancer. Mary Jo came to visit him and to help comfort us. She's also a talented artist and she painted his portrait a couple of years ago. It is the first thing that I see in the morning and it will always hold good memories for me.

Mary Jo's Portrait, with "Flying Nun" Ears

And memories are all that Ann and I have now. Charlie wasn't the perfect dog by a long shot, but he was a perfect dog for our crazy family. Goodbye little buddy. RIP you pain in the ass!