It's Been A Year Charley

What do I miss most about Charley since it has been one year today since he has been gone?  

This is a toss-up since there are so many things I use to write about. He is the dog that everyone seemed to fall in love with, even those that never met him! At the end of the day, I would have to say the crazy way he had of making every day begin and end with laughter and love!

From the moment we picked up Charley he was commotion in motion!  I followed the breeder down to where he was at with the puppies in the litter all scurrying around a baby pool. Naturally the one I was taking home was literally climbing up everyone’s back as she is telling me “He is such a sweetie!”  I am thinking “He looks like a royal mess, a little bear who needs obedience training for toddlers.”

As she tried to give us all the information, he kept running away, another trait we became all too

familiar with over time. Charley was the escape artist as the neighborhood was well aware of.

Luckily all of them loved him, the big galoot. That is, except for the foul-mouthed man in the back-end of the subdivision who had lots of guns who threatened to shoot him if he ever laid another paw in his yard,  He even pounded on our door one night at 10:30 to tell us he thought Charley had been up there earlier that night while he was gone. We have no idea how when we were home all night and avoided his place like the plague!  I think, by then, Charley didn't even want to pee in his yard! I think he just hated labs or me because nobody hated Charley!  Maybe I should have let Charley get close enough to lick his face when he was outside our front door screaming. But maybe not, maybe that would have been the one time in Charley's life he'd have acted like a guard dog! God knows, at no other time did he!

Charley started the day like a little kid, bugging us to get up. If it was just me home, he literally bumped my head. If I ignored him, he jumped on the bed, and began pulling the covers off of me. Next he pulled the pillow out from under my head. Then became the face washing. Anyone that knew the size of Charley’s head, more precisely his tongue, knows you can’t stand this for any length of time!  Morning has broken, Charley style!

Taking a walk was more fun with Charley on a leash. You couldn’t help but notice every critter that moved by, even fly by leaves or plastic bags that appeared, to him, to be potential prey.  He had enough of the hunting field dog in him to want to impress us. But we had to keep it real and tell him he wasn’t all that smart and was lucky we adopted him because living on leaves and roadkill wasn’t nearly as luxurious as what we were feeding him.

One of the highlights of every summer day was watching him swim in our pool. I have seen dogs jump off a landings into pools. Charley flew!  It was incredible but not a picture of grace.  And if you didn’t want to get wet, you couldn’t be standing anywhere on the deck! We threw Frisbees and he would catch it in his mouth, he could carry it back, he could retrieve it under water. Charley was halftime entertainment for neighbors. 

Charley would swim with us and play with my granddaughter in the pool. What a joy to have a big 125 lb. moving toy in the pool who just loved being there and was interactive!  If we tried to keep him out, he sat at the window or at the patio doors barking his head off like there were burglars outside.

Speaking off security, Jim always said he was a poor excuse for protection for our home!  Jim could walk in at lunchtime or at the end of the day and find Charley sprawled out on our bed.  He walks in to where he found Charley and asks him accusingly “What if I was a burglar Charley, would you just lay there and do nothing?”  Thank God we never had to find out! I think the answer is that as long as they weren’t going for his treats, they were okay to come in to his house!

Having a dog everyone talks about because he is like a big Marmaduke is really hard to replace and get over losing. But the stories I have are endless and so many friends that knew him and of him keep our special Charley as much alive in many ways as he was for 13 years.  He was so loyal to me that during my chemotherapy, I am not sure anyone was with me as much as him next to Jim. He never left my side no matter where I was at, even hanging by the bathroom door if I was sick, whining if he heard me till I was well and back in bed or in another room and okay.

I miss him horribly but knowing, at the end, he was suffering I am so relieved he was out of pain. He deserved to be free again, at peace, in heaven running and jumping and harassing all the other dogs up there before him.  I know that I won’t have to look for him when I get up there. All I will have to do is say his name and he will come running and I need to remember to not lock my knees…..  Some things about Charley won’t change, not even in heaven!   My loveable angel Charley, love and miss you! Momma