DOXIE TAILS 4

                       Charlie Brown Clown

        I called him my “little brother”.  Charlie came to live with us when he was 5 years old and I was a senior in high school.  The year was 1995.  I had always wanted a dog.  Family members had raised dachshunds, so I was very excited to welcome Charlie into our home.  We were adopting him from my mother’s coworker.  She had two very young children and another dog and things where just getting a little tight in their home. 

        Charlie had a rough transition into our home.  He was used to a noisy home filled with kids and other animals. Our home was a library compared to his previous abode.  Only days after coming to live at our home, my mother’s mother passed away.  Charlie was a blessing for my mother dealing with this loss.  Charlie suffered with stomach troubles.  After several weeks and several trips to the vet, even a suggestion to take him to the state vet school for more tests, things settled down.  

        In the fall, I went off to college.  I loved coming home on the weekend to find Charlie waiting for me at the door. Charlie and I would “fight” for the end of the couch.  I had my spot on our old blue couch.  Anytime I moved to get a drink, answer the phone, or change the channel (remember when you got up to do that?) Charlie would steal my seat.  It would be treacherous to move him; he would show teeth in order to urge me not to move him out of this coveted warm spot on the blue couch.  On Sunday afternoons, when I had to pack up and head back to school, Charlie would follow me around the house.  My mom would call me on the road to say, “Charlie keeps going to your bedroom looking for you.”  His big sis had to leave, and it would break my heart to know he was “looking” for me.  

        Charlie had many mischievous acts in his nearly 15 years.  He once played “Cowboys and Indians” by scalping the hair off some baby dolls.  He got his paws a prized possession of mine, a rubber ink stamper. His greatest feat was getting a new can of peanuts out of a low cabinet, removing the plastic lid, peeling back the metal ring seal and dispersing the contents all over the kitchen floor while feasting on his tasty treat.  My mother and brother came home to find this mess and Charlie still grazing on the nuts.  Momma said, “Jason, pick up the peanuts and put them back in the can.”  Jason replied, “Yuck, we are NOT going to eat them?”  No, my mom just wanted to see how many Charlie had eaten.  No harm came to this little nut thief from this misadventure, but he wasn’t hungry for quite some time.  

        Charlie loved the warmth of the sunshine in the Mississippi Delta.  He was that preverbal wiener dog in the sun spot on the floor.  He was very adept at holding a bone or tennis ball in his front paws while chewing away.  Outside, Charlie loved to chase a ball or toy; he wasn’t so much for bringing them back to you though.  Once, he enjoyed an afternoon of running around the backyard with the water hose in his mouth.  He has a few tinkle accidents after that.

        In his later years, Charlie was a perfect role model for my wiener babies, Chuck and Basky.  Uncle Charlie taught them how to folic and play the wiener dog way.  He had a furcousin, Ben who he spent much time with at Paw Paw’s house.  Ben was trained to fetch newspapers and slippers.  Charlie had no such formal education.  Charlie’s time came in the spring of 2005.  He left behind a family of both human and wiener that loved him very much and still celebrate his memory today.  

Chucky and Basky's Mom