The Charlie Incident

As most of you know, Cade got Charlie for Christmas 2006. He’s a Welsh Corgi who started out being extremely cute. Then he got hyper – so hyper that Cade doesn’t want to play with him. So hyper that I don’t want to deal with him. That leaves Jay to take care of Charlie. To get his leash on him we have to grab his collar and choke him because he won’t stand still. You can hear him gasping, but he won’t stop moving. Jay has said that the dog is going to be the death of him.

Part of the reason why he’s so hyper is that he’s penned up all the time. He won’t stay in our yard and we don’t trust him to be out during the day. Cade and I don’t like to mess with him, but neither of us can stand the thought of losing him either. Jay has decided he’s going to start turning Charlie lose when we are home. It really has to be done because otherwise Charlie is going to have a miserable life. Cade and I have adjusted and Charlie has been handling it pretty well. The first day we turned him loose we shook up our neighborhood. One neighbor (across the lane) carried Charlie back to our house and the other one (older couple at the end of the lane) called to tell us Charlie was running around their yard. Jay said that no one would get off his back about the dog. At least we know we have good neighbors that look out for us. It was the third time Jay let Charlie out that we had problems…..

That evening (last Friday) Jay went out to feed him and mess around for awhile. After he came in to take a shower I realized our garage door was still open. I wondered why, but thought Jay had just forgotten to shut it. About 10:00 that night Jay went back outside and then I knew why he’d left the door open – Charlie was missing. Jay can say all he wants to that he wasn’t worried about Charlie but when he and Cade said their nightly prayer I heard him quickly whisper “please bring Charlie home”. Neither of us ever want to have to tell Cade that Charlie's missing. Luckily Cade never figured it out.

We got into bed and neither of us could sleep. I was imagining Charlie lying in a ditch someplace and it was such a cold night. I asked Jay if he should go drive around to see if he had gotten hit. Jay somewhat reluctantly got up and drove off in the truck. I couldn’t leave our yard because of Cade, but I felt bad laying in our nice, warm bed while Jay was out looking for the dog so I got up to help So I did all that I knew to do - I went outside in my pajamas calling for Charlie. I walked around by the road yelling “Here Charlie, come here Charlie”. Off in the distance I heard a dog bark. I thought it sounded like him but wasn’t for sure. I’d yell, the dog would respond. We kept this up for quite some time. Finally I saw the truck approaching. Jay got closer to the house and then he just drove right past me. There was a lime green VW Bug right on his rear. I figured he hadn’t seen me out in the yard or he would’ve at least acknowledged me. Me and the mystery dog went back to our same routine, I’d yell, he’d answer. Eventually I gave up and went back in the house to call Jay.

I tried calling twice, finally on the second call Jay answered. He told me he had my pooch. With fear in my heart I asked if he was still alive, Jay snorted and said of course. Then he had to go because he was trying to back up. I met Charlie and Jay out in the front yard (still wearing my pajamas) and told Charlie he’d been a naughty dog. Then I got a good look at Jay – he was wearing a gray t-shirt, sky blue pajama pants with snowmen on them tucked into a pair of boots. We got back into bed and Jay told me the story….

Remember the green VW bug? The person in the car had Charlie. He was new to the neighborhood and Charlie came to their house right after Jay turned him loose. The guy got concerned because Charlie was wearing a collar, but none of our information was on it. The guy decided to pen Charlie up, thinking he was helping us. He and his friend heard Jay yelling for Charlie so he went out in his lime green VW bug looking for us. After Jay drove by our house he turned into a drive way to turn around. The green car stopped and asked if he was looking for a dog. Jay followed this guy back to his house to get Charlie. Remember what Jay was wearing? Jay said that’s why you don’t pen up people’s pets. Charlie would’ve been home hours ago.

I asked Jay if he saw me out in the yard when he drove by, he said he had but he didn’t want anyone to know that he knew me. He said my pajama pants were almost as bad as his. Once he met the new neighbors he was trying to point out our yard light to describe where we lived. He didn’t want to tell him it was the house with the woman standing outside. Jay told me I looked like I was watching for aliens.

We can’t wait until Cade’s old enough to share this story with, this one could become a family favorite. I laughed until I cried Friday night. Then long after Jay had fallen asleep I'd think about it again and start laughing. Even typing this today has made me laugh. It may be more of a "you had to be there" story, but if you know Jay you can hear him saying "that's why you don't pen up people's pets". Now I'm laughing again.

Moral of the story – Charlie’s getting a tag with Jay’s name and our phone number before he’s turned loose again. I asked Jay if we should put Charlie's name on the tag instead. Jay said "No, we'll have people asking for Charlie and you'll tell them they have the wrong number". Good point.