Charlie is no longer with us. He hadn’t been himself for a while, and last Wednesday when he was taken into the vets for a blood test and abdominal scan, it wasn’t good news and so the difficult decision was taken to put the poor sod to sleep. He’d been ignoring his food (but still begging for cat and human food) for a while, and yet his stomach had been getting bigger. It wasn’t the ideal preparation for Christmas, especially not when we were travelling north that day after finishing work.
Nominally Charlie was Helen’s son’s dog, but in reality, he was Helen’s, and had been around long before I was really a part of her life. My first encounter with Charlie was when we were going on a training walk for the Thames Path challenge in 2013. It needs pointing out that I am petrified of dogs, and so when Helen asked me to hold Charlie’s lead for a minute, apparently, I turned whiter than usual.
As a springer, Charlie wasn’t a small dog, he had a deep sounding bark, and was over exuberant and I found him scary. However, as time went on and I spent more time around him I found that he was just a soft in the head, friendly, lunatic of a dog. This doesn’t mean I’m not wary of other dogs, just that I was OK around Charlie.
There are just so many things that he did that made us smile, and a few that were exasperating. He loved chasing things; balls, sticks and frisbees were always good, squirrels were better, although I’m not convinced he would have known what to do with one if he actually caught it. He seemed to have an endless supply of energy to chase things, although he never did get the hang of giving the ball or frisbee back so it could be thrown again.
It must have been a thing about having something in his silly doggy mouth. Whenever anyone arrived at the house Charlie would rush to try and find any socks or pants from the radiator so he could show them to the newcomer. We would be forever finding random socks all over the house. And he had a thing for bin dipping as well, mainly looking for used tissues he could shred and eat, but he also had a knack for finding other less hygienic items, such as the used condom he found in the bathroom bin after an illicit hook-up post-Christmas party one year.
He loved jumping in water, although he would avoid walking in puddles, and we couldn’t get him into the paddling pool in the back garden for love nor money; ponds, lakes, rivers, and the sea were not an issue. Once he came out of the water, he had to find some random person to go and shake the water off on. And he would find the most disgusting pools of water and lap it up as if it was the best tasting nectar the world had ever seen.
Then there was his eating, there was absolutely no impulse control on Charlie, if it looked, smelt or might have been food then he would eat it. I lost count of the number of times I’ve gone back into the kitchen to find him on the table scoffing cat or human food. Items not left far enough back on the worktop would be dragged to the floor and demolished, often only leaving the wrapper as any proof there had been food there in the first place. And it was often food that dogs shouldn’t eat. We’ve found the empty wrapper to six iced buns, and despite being on top of a speaker on the side of a storage unit, he had climbed up, pulled a box full of alcohol filled truffles and eaten the lot – he looked most pleased with that, and despite the chocolate and alcohol he didn’t show even the slightest sign of ill effects.
The funniest was when he snaffled the drip tray from the George Foreman grill. Obviously, the meaty grease smells were a great attraction. The first we knew of it was when he came into the living room with a funny expression, licking his lips frantically. He would rush to the kitchen for water and come back and do it all over again. He had picked the day we’d been cooking chilli burgers and so the fat was chilli laden and had burnt his poor little doggy lips.
It wasn’t just inside the house he would eat anything going, outside offered the chance to eat whatever was just left lying around. Dead pigeon? Yes please. Mouldy sausage roll thrown in a bush? Of course. Poor unsuspecting family having a picnic in the middle of a field? You bet. How Charlie managed not to poison himself is one of life’s little mysteries.
Strange as it may seem, there were a few things Charlie wouldn’t eat, mainly salad items (he’s not the only one). He would often pick up a cherry tomato, as they were red and ball shaped, only for us to find them spat out somewhere down the garden. Lettuce would be hoovered up only to be spat out Rapido. I’m sure there is still some spat out lettuce under the fridge.
Away from food Charlie considered himself to be an escape artist, not wanting to be confined to the house and garden he had been known to escape through cat flaps, disappear out of an open front door and go to visit the local shops. He would chew his way through, under or over fences and gates to get into neighbour’s gardens, and when gales blew down the back fence, he was off and running into the park out the back, often as silly o’clock in the morning, and it would be me in slippers and boxer shorts trying to corral him back into the house. An open front door would see him race out, around the bins and then into next door’s house, or on one occasion across the road, in the passenger door of a parking car and then burrowing under their shopping on the back seat.
He did love a good barking session. It wasn’t always good, he’d bark the house down at three in the morning, only for us to get down and open the door and him not need the toilet. He would bark at passers-by, although embarrassingly it only appeared to be at non-whites and children (and Andy next door when he had a suntan). There was the time when we picked him up from kennels after Christmas one year, and for the girl there suddenly look all excited when we said we’d come to pick Charlie up. He tried to bark when we got home but it only came out as a kind of squeak. The kennel girl must have looked delighted because the little sod had spent all week barking himself hoarse.
Charlie could be annoying, as he made it difficult to keep nice things. Pillows and cushions would get shagged to death, with the corners chewed off. If they were left at a low level, they would never be the same again. Anything on a low level could be ruined. Shredded cardboard boxes, records, books, all would get Charlied. And as old age wore on, fireworks would see him ripping up rugs and carpets as well.
Getting big teddy bears helped with this. Having one he could have sexy time with would ease the wreckage elsewhere. Over time they would develop holes and we’d find stuffing all over the place, but it was a single item. Of course, no Charlie round up would be complete without a tale about one of the bears. I was sat with my back to the kitchen at the table when I saw Charlie slink past slowly towards the back door, to be followed by one of the bears, which was stuck to his penis. The funny look on Charlie’s face was a picture as he pleaded with his eyes for the bear to be removed from his privates. I was too busy laughing to be much help, and Helen was dreading having to call the vets, but movement in the garden freed Charlie from the bear and he spent the next half an hour under the tree licking himself vigorously. Not that it deterred him, he came back inside and headed straight for the bear again.
The other tale I heard a lot but wasn’t around at the time to see for myself was when Helen had friends from work round. There were three of them sat on the sofa when Charlie decided to use it for doing laps. He ran across their laps, up the arm, across the back of the sofa behind their heads, down the other arm and repeat. It’s not sure how many laps were done before Helen managed to stop laughing long enough to get him to stop.
I’m sure there are many other tales that will spring(er) to mind after I’ve written this, but I will leave it here so that it doesn’t get left and then forgotten about.
So, now there is none of that. It is strange to think he won’t be around, and it is sad that he is gone, it seems so sudden. But it is for the best that it was done now rather than having it go on and the poor thing suffer. A source of constant amusement (well nearly always amusement) has now gone, and he will be missed.