Is this your dog?

A lot of people start their relationships with an introduction, something like, "Hi, my name is Ed" or "I'd like you to meet whatshername".

My life with Charlie started with, "Is this your dog"?

Six years ago I answered a knock at the door and was greeted by a woman holding a rather large puppy. "Is this your dog", she said. I told her that the puppy wasn't mine, and I don't quite remember if it was 5 seconds or less before the puppy was on my shoulder. She said the puppy was just wandering around the neighborhood, and she was trying to find its owner.

With yet-to-be-named, I walked down the street with him on my shoulder. The woman who found him said she thought he came from a house a couple of blocks away. Within a couple of minutes we were standing in front of the suspect house and a few people were standing around. One of them said, "Oh, there's one of the puppies!" One of the puppies? "Yes there are nine of them, and a few got out this morning."

Well, that was enough for me to decide right there on the spot that he-whose-name-must-not-be-spoken wasn' t going back there. After returning home, I called a neighbor to borrow his dog crate. The neighbor's response proved to be even more enlightening. He said he would love to let us borrow it, but he and his wife had found two puppies hiding in the buses in front of their house and both of them were in the crate. The plot thickens.

I am not sure of the details but within a short span of time I had the crate and the three puppies at our house. It was pretty clear that whoever-it-was that was responsible for the litter wasn't getting them back.

Within a matter of a week or so, we had the puppies to the vet to receive their shots and to be checked out. Getting them adopted was a lay down. Two of them were adopted by people who worked at the veterinary hospital. Two of the three. Whatshisname wasn't put up for adoption.

I gave you-know-who a name..something like Geezer. My partner at the time had bought some treats named "Charlees". Well that was it. Charlee became Charlie. (No chance of someone making a mistake and pronouncing it "charlay") Welcome home boy. We all felt pretty good about what we had accomplished and could get on with our lives.

Not so fast cowboy. A couple of weeks later, as I was walking Charlie, I saw a German Shepherd walking towards me with two MORE puppies. While I know that dogs don't have goals the way we humans do (of course someone is going to say that chasing a squirrel is part of the goal of catching the squirrel, but you get the idea) the mother left the two puppies there and wandered back to her house.

Here we go again. Three of them into the house and into the crate. Another trip to the vet. More shots and exams and then the adoptions. One of them took longer to find a home for than the others....much longer and you know what happens the longer you have a puppy in the house, but we already had two and couldn't fathom having three. And worse yet, we named him. Klinger.

The day the fourth-out-of-five was picked up by his new owner. My partner and I were a mess. We knew what we had to do but you know, well, that rationale doesn't make it any easier. With tears to go round our last one left.

That was six years ago.

I can't be sure, but I wonder if another dog has ever come up to Charlie and said, "Is this your owner? And, if so, I wonder what Charlie's version of the story would be...