AR-News: (MI - US) Beloved dog remembered

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Beloved dog remembered 

Saturday, March 20, 2004 



A few weeks back I heard about President Bush's dog dying. 
    
        
                    
Now, regardless of how I might feel about his politics, I felt sad for him. 
When your dog dies, in my opinion, it's a major loss. It's been three years 
since Charley died, and I still miss him. 

My daughter Kara rescued Charley from an abusive owner in Marshall. The first 
thing Rick said when he saw him was "not another dog," but Charley was never 
just another dog. He quickly wormed his way into all our hearts. 
A boxer, pit-bull mix, Charley approached life in his own unique way. 

Charley was always on the move. He could run faster than any dog I have ever 
seen. He had a habit of flying toward you, launching himself into the air and 
rebounding off your chest with all four of his white paws. 

Charley smiled when he ran, tearing down leaf-lined paths in the woods, 
white-tipped tail held high. He would bound through soy bean fields, leaping like a 
jackrabbit every once in a while, so he could see above the beans. 

Charley was a world-class beggar. He would sit by our kitchen table when food 
was being served with his liquid brown eyes trained on Rick, the softest 
touch. Silently, he would edge closer and closer to Rick until his head was 
resting on Rick's knee. 

Charley was a hunter extraordinaire. He spent whole afternoons wearing a 
track around our tiny farm pond, hoping to catch a frog. Once he ran 14 feet up a 
slanting dead elm, grabbed a woodchuck, then leaped from the tree with his 
prey in his mouth. He kept an eye on the two chipmunks who live in our old maple 
trees in the front yard. Charley lived for the chase. 

Charley and Lexie, his daughter, would play the wildest game of tag I have 
ever witnessed. Running with disregard for obstacles, they would chase each 
other at breakneck speed. Growling and somersaulting over and over in the thick 
grass of the back yard, or stopping and starting in the sand of our abandoned 
volleyball court, they never failed to make me smile. 

We dug a grave for Charley by the rock garden where the alyssum and the 
dahlberg daisies will bloom next summer. We laid a rug in the bottom, as Charley 
never liked to lie down on the hard floor. We wrapped him up in a blanket and 
carefully tucked in all the edges. 

Then we said goodbye and breathed a prayer. We figured God must have had a 
woodchuck problem in heaven. 


© 2004 Jackson Citizen Patriot. Used with permission

    

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