As anyone who may have met him will know, the calamity that is Charlie is completely crazy.
For a long time he has been a very real menace to anything with stuffing in. Despite having being done at an early and appropriate age, he still gets the urge to shag the stuffing out of any cushion or pillow going. We can’t have cushions on the sofa in the living room because they don’t last more than a couple of days before Charlie has chewed all the corners off and then shagged all the stuffing out of the chewed corners.
For a long time he would find a way to break into the bedrooms, and when he did he would drag a pillow off the bed, or in to the middle of it and have his way with it. Having now installed handles on all doors that prevent him being able to force his way into bedrooms, he hasn’t been able to take his frustrations out in the usual manner.
Instead he had taken to tearing up the carpet upstairs and chewing the hell out of that. When there was no more carpet for him to wreck, he took to scrunching the rugs up and trying to shag them.
Therefore we thought it would be a good idea to go around the charity shops and see if we could find a large teddy bear. Which we did. We placed it next to his pile of blankets in the kitchen and left it for Charlie to investigate.
But, being an awkward sod, he didn’t. He ignored it for over five months. Therefore we moved it next to the front door to take back to a charity shop when it got around to being the weekend. Only to find the next day that Charlie had decided it was time to become friends with Teddy.
Close friends.
So over the last three weeks Charlie has built up an ongoing physical relationship with the teddy. He’s chewed holes in the ears, and all the stuffing has escaped from there. One of the arms has a hole in it as well now and is losing its stuffing at a steady pace and becoming withered. Every day we find another little bit of stuffing lying on the rug in the living room. And we frequently find Charlie laying in an exhausted heap panting like a loon.
Well, this evening, Charlie surpassed himself.
There I was, sitting at the kitchen table shelling peas. One for me, and one for the pot. When all of a sudden I can hear Charlie doing his puffing billy routine and I see him moving gingerly out of the corner of my eye. He is slowly trying to make his way out of the back door, struggling to cross the threshold.
Then I see the reason why. Trailing behind him, hanging by one ear between Charlie’s rear legs is Teddy. Charlie is looking back over his shoulder at me with a baleful look on his face. He is screaming help me, but not making a sound.
Upon closer inspection, Charlie has his penis stuck through one of the ears of Teddy and can’t seem to get himself free. He is all swollen and purple and unable to leave Teddy behind. Teddy is being dragged slowly across the patio and on to the lawn.
All that I can think of is the joke. Why did the pervert cross the road? Because he couldn’t get his cock out of the chicken.
Therefore I’m not doing a particularly good job of trying not to laugh, and Helen is a bit worried about how to disentangle Teddy from Charlie’s appendage. There is a reluctance to cut Teddy’s ear off, as scissors near Charlie’s bits are a recipe for disaster. Perhaps some water would help lubricate matters, and so Helen goes off to get some, just at the moment Charlie finally manages to break free from the overly attached Teddy.
I pick Teddy up and put him back in the living room on the table and return to shelling peas (I did wash my hands first). Charlie still has a pained look on his face, or does in the brief interludes he looks up from licking his slightly distended penis. After a good ten minutes of licking his bits he finally manages to get back on his feet and hobbles slowly back inside the house.
Only for him to be found in the living room near to where Teddy is suddenly back on the floor.
There really is no hope for the daft dog.