Best Dog I Ever Had

It must be twenty years now since I saw the article in Reader's Digest entitled "Worst Dog I Ever Had" about an old man and a dog. This particular old man, according to his granddaughter, would seize on any mention of the dog to give it a blue streak cussin' and passed up no opportunity to tell anyone who would listen what a 'no-account, good for nothing" chow hound this dog was. It was he said, "the worst dog I ever had."

Listening to the old man, one would wonder that he hadn't dragged the dog off into the woods, tied it to a tree and put a bullet between its eyes. The true tale was told though after the dog died. As he shoveled the dirt back into the hole, the old man 's muttered, almost whispered  "Worst damn dog I ever had…" was spoken in a shaky broken voice, quiet enough that it was obvious he spoke only to himself and to the dog. 

I had a dog like that one time. His name was Charlie and he landed in our home direct from some animal rescue shelter out in King George County after a $300 stay at the vet's for heartworm treatment. We lived out in the country then and had a lot of animals already so I was somewhat less than enchanted at the prospect of another mouth to feed especially one the size he was. He was a big guy, weighing well over 100 pounds. We even ended up giving him a nickname, Bear. (Why in the world would a dog need a nick name?) Think of a smallish, almost totally black Great Dane and you'll get the picture of what I saw moving in on our critter food bill. Between the goats, rabbits, chickens, geese, cats and other dogs we were already spending more on animal food than I felt we could afford.   

Charlie turned out to be an OK dog in the brief time he was with us. Other than the time he swallowed my daughter's gerbil whole,  he never hurt anything. Ruth had decided to show Charlie her little pet, holding it out in her hands with appropriate little girl style narrative. I'm guessing she was about half way through her second sentence, holding the critter more or less nose to nose with the a huge dog head which apparently perceived it as a snack. In a flash, he somehow sucked it in and Ruth was left not only with two empty hands but a now unoccupied empty gerbil castle in her room. We were all stunned at how fast it happened and I immediately zoned out on this little unfortunate scurrying around in a very dark dog stomach, looking for the "Exit" sign.

He was fine with all the other animals in the yard and in the house. One day he was stretched out on his side taking a nap when our parrot fluttered off his perch and landed on Charlie's hip. I figured the bird was a goner, headed for where the gerbil had ended up. Charlie slowly lifted his head and kind of looked back towards his rear end. His expression was almost one of "Oh, it's just you". He resumed his nap and the bird lived to scream another day.

One more than one occasion when a stranger showed up at our gate, Charlie placed himself between the stranger and any of us including my kids. As soon as he sensed that we were OK with whoever it was he settled down and all was well.

If you're wondering how I, the pet Scrooge, accepted this dog into our home, here's what happened, exactly as it happened.  The corner was turned the first night he was there. After dinner we were sitting on the couch in the family room watching TV. Charlie walked around to where my wife was sitting and put his head in her lap. (The oldest trick in the book, right?)

She scratched him behind the ears and said, "Don't talk to me; you want to stay, you better talk to him." He immediately picked his head up out of her lap, walked around the coffee table and put his head in my lap. He didn't even look at me, just rested his head there while I scratched him behind the ears.

Folks, there are some messages that are loud and clear without a sound being heard and there are some things you  just don't mess with. Charlie was there to stay for the next seven years. I think he already knew what we would later conclude, that he had been misplaced and wandering for years until our paths finally converged. He was meant to be ours all along. Sometimes things don't quite come together just right at first.

When his kidneys finally began to fail he went downhill quickly. The day he died, when we went down to pick him up, the vet asked if we wanted him to take care of Charlie since he was so large. I managed to say that we would take care of all that. I don't know quite how but I picked up that limp 100 pound dog by myself and carried him to the back of the car.

When we sold that house in 1994, the back flower garden included the stone marker we had made for him. It read "Miss you, Bear" I still do.

Comments

[Nikki]

Nice piece Jim. There is nothing like a beloved pet to make life more wonderful while they live, and terrible when they die.

[Daughter Ruth]

wow that was great dad!
I could see Charlie Brown Bear exactly how he was when he ate my rodent. Gosh I can still feel the shock of it.

You should tell them the story about how I slept with Noodles....

I love you