Charley Made Me a Better Person, #3

Years before we had Charley, when our relationship was at its very beginning, I was an apartment dweller who traveled frequently, so for pets I had two cats, Ben and Chloe. When they were 9 years old, the same summer Rob and I moved from being friends to something more, Chloe's kidneys started to fail. I nursed her along for a few months but finally it was time to let her go. After she was gone, Ben was inconsolable, yowling mournfully at the door of my apartment. To distract him from his misery, I went to the pound and got him a 12 week old kitten named Buck. Ben pretended at first to be aloof, but within weeks he and the kitten were inseparable.  

When Charley came to us he was very young and a bundle of nervous energy. During the day he could hardly relax, jumping up at every sound or movement, following us wherever we went around the house, and of course chasing the cats. We had just moved into our house and old Ben had not weathered the move well, the third time he and I had moved in our life together. To protect them we quarantined the cats off into the back part of the house where the kids' bedrooms are and kept Charley with us on our side of the house so we could train him. I was deeply attached to Ben and not yet attached to Charley, and I resented the dog for separating me from Ben, who for nearly 15 years had been one of the few true constants in my life.  For a couple of months Ben's health deteriorated and one day he walked up to me from under the bed where he had been hiding from the dog, climbed up into my lap, put his front paws on my chest and looked into my eyes. The next day I took him to the vet and let him go. 

For a time after Ben left us Buck remained under the bed where he had kept vigil with Ben in his last weeks. I think he was mourning the cat who had raised him for nearly 6 years. Charley continued to be boisterous and restless, although glimpses of a sweet dog sometimes appeared.  One day Bucky emerged from his hiding place in the bedroom, sauntered in to the living room without a care, jumped on the back of the couch and assumed the meatloaf position. Charley couldn't believe his good luck and ran over to give chase.  To the complete surprise of all of us, Charley included, Bucky held his ground, reached out a paw and hit Charley on the flat part of the bridge of his nose several times fast, claws sheathed, making a hollow thunking sound. Charley was so astonished he just stood there blinking while Buck rained down these harmless blows on his nose. That was the turning point in my relationship with Charley, and Charley's with Buck. Ben's departure freed up space in my heart for Charley, and allowed Buck to assert some dominance in our make shift pack that Charley seemed to welcome.  Charley began to calm down from that moment on, and Buck began to display much more personality than we had seen in him before. 

Third way in which Charley made me a better person: love is not a zero-sum game, it is infinite. Sometimes you have to let go to see the new opportunities to love again. 

Charley Made Me a Better Person, #2

Early on the last morning of Charley's life, a black cat stood outside in our yard in the dark. I'm not superstitious. My beloved Ben-cat, beautiful plush all black Ben, was near the end of his 15 year life when we brought Charley home, and died shortly thereafter. Ben and Charley never knew each other; Ben was too old and tired to deal with a young energetic pup and he steered clear of Charley for the short time they both shared our home.  When Rob told me a black cat sat out front on the morning we knew we had to let Charley go, I could think only one thing: Ben had come to take Charley, and Charley would be accompanied on his next journey by an animal I loved as much as I love Charley. The thought comforted me. 

Charley was an extremely expressive dog, yet I rarely remember him barking for what he wanted, or in excitement, or most of the other reasons dogs bark. He made many sounds though. He gave a singing howl when we came home, especially when the last of us returned from our separate activities in the evening. He loved having his whole pack home for the night. Charley was an active dreamer. He would start dreaming as soon as he fell asleep - paws, eyebrows and whiskers twitching, and making a loud muffled barking sound we called "woop-woop". For a dog who rarely barked during waking hours, he barked constantly in his sleep. Many is the night his woop-woop dreams woke us up.  We hoped he was dreaming of chasing something wonderful, like a squirrel or a bunny, and not being chased by something scary. 

 

Charley had a large repertoire of vocalizations. He growled menacingly when Petey stumbled over him in his zeal to get the toy we threw for him. Charley never really saw the point of playing fetch, maybe that was why Petey's clumsiness annoyed him. The only times we could really count on Charley to bark - and bark loudly - was when someone came to the door. When he was chasing a squirrel in the yard he would make a high pitched squealing sound. Otherwise, no barking, no loud noises. One of the many reasons Charley was so easy to live with is that he was so quiet. 

 

Which made it difficult sometimes to figure out what he wanted when he delivered one of his patented meaningful gazes. He would walk up to us and look intently into our faces with his warm brown eyes, his tail wagging gently and hopefully, and we were meant to guess what he wanted: supper? out? walk? Walk was a likely choice; what dog doesn't jump at the chance to go for a walk. Supper was pretty easy. We fed the dogs first thing in the morning and again around 6:30 pm and Charley's internal clock rarely failed him, if it perhaps ran a bit fast.  If we didn't figure out what he wanted, or missed the whole subtle communication and gave him a distracted ear scratch, he would go lie down on the floor, sighing loudly, and try again later. 

At night Charley slept on the floor of our bedroom on his bed by the dresser. Sometimes he started the night on our bed, jumping up by invitation only, and curling himself by our feet. He didn't like it when our feet moved though, especially in his later years, and he would get down and go to his own bed with a harrumph if we moved too much while we settled in for sleep. Some time in the night he would wake up and come to the side of the bed to give one of his meaningful stares, which had limited effectiveness when we were asleep hough many is the night one or the other of us 'heard' him staring at us and woke up enough to give the invitation. If he needed to up his game to get our attention, he would shake his head making an ear-flapping sound. We responded by tapping the covers with our hand and that was sufficient invitation for Charley. Charley was an incorrigible bed hog. He generally slept on my side of the bed and pushed me towards the middle, leaving Rob clinging to the frame on his side. We didn't banished him from the bed though, it was Charley.

 

Charley never begged for food because we never fed him from the table, and his manners were such that we could make a ham sandwich and leave it on the coffee table, and that dog would not touch it. Charley knew where the dog treats were kept though, and when one of us went to the kitchen, he would accompany us and then sit emphatically by the cabinet where the treats lived. If we missed the signal - we never gave him a treat unless he did something to earn it; sitting was often sufficient - he would reset, slamming his rear end down on the floor to demonstrate his compliance with the sit rule. If we tried to get around him he couldn't believe it, and would serially reset himself in front of us to block our passage. Rob's alpha-ness considered this a challenge and he would try to break up Charley's intense focus on the treats jar, but I almost always caved and gave up a dog cookie. 

Second way in which Charley made me a better person: your needs will get met eventually, don't demand. Unless there is a treat at stake. 

Charley Made Me a Better Person, #1

His prison name was Chico. It never remotely suited him, and he didn't answer to it. It was just a name they gave him at the shelter, and no one seemed to know who he really was. It took a couple of weeks for his real name to emerge. One day he was Charley and there was no turning back. I read Steinbeck's Travels with Charley when I was young and the spelling seemed right. At first Rob thought it was a feminine spelling till I reminded him about the book. He was always Charley, never Charlie.  A couple of years later the neighbor kid Willy still shouted "Chico!" when he saw our dog.  He is Charley, I would reply silently through clenched teeth. Learn my dog's name. 

 

He was about one and a half years old and when we met him he had been passed over twice by prospective owners. Each had taken him home from the shelter and then brought him back after a few days. Twice. Why? we asked the shelter person. Allergies, he said, somewhat vaguely.  Thirteen years later we held each other sobbing as the vet loaded his body on a stretcher into the SUV, a blanket covering his lower half but his still-beautiful face visible, and Rob said through his tears, "I can't believe someone passed him up twice."

 

All together, he had spent at least six weeks, maybe more at the shelter and he was as crazy as you would expect after so much prison time. I was deeply apprehensive as I watched the shelter handler struggle to bring him to us on a leash, the dog leaping in four directions at once. I couldn't imagine that this wild creature was to be our family pet, the dog we had been dreaming of through all our years as renters. But Rob saw something in his face and we brought him home. 

 

First way in which Charley made me a better person: don't be so concerned about behaviors. Look deeper.