Charlie's Place

If you have been to our house then you have met the smallest member of our family. He has soft brown hair and a big flag tail. Charlie is what you call a terrier mix. We still speculate on what the mix is. But whatever it is, it’s a good one. Everyone who meets him seems to be amazed at his personality. He loves people and interacts with them so easily that you forget he is a dog. We even try to train him to react like a human. But every once in a while, he reminds us that he is all dog. And sometimes the dog approach to situations is the best

Last evening I walked out of our house only to see a little white dog in our front yard. There was about 4 inches of fresh snow on the ground and the dog nearly blended in. There was a leash attached to the dog. And as I stepped out of the house further, the scene began to make sense. The cute little dog was squatting down and crapping on my front lawn. Standing behind him a few feet away, holding its leash was a woman all bundled up in a matching jacket and pants snow suit.

Now good upbringing in a polite society leads one to be cordial in all situations. So, as the embarrassed woman smiled at me, I just nodded and said, “Oh, hello, there.” She shrugged her shoulders and then looked alarmed because it was then that Charlie bolted from the house and trotted up to her dog with a “what are you doing here?” attitude.

Charlie rushed up to the little dog and they started to go through the sniff each other ritual. The lady was concerned about the confrontation and tried to quiet an agitated Charlie by saying “Oh – what a cute dog you have.”

Because I am human, I wanted to defuse any confrontation too so I immediately started in on a “No Charlie, go into the house Charlie” routine.

But here is the thing that I realized. People sometimes go to too great of lengths to be polite. Dogs don’t need to. They are dogs and the world to them is about territory. Charlie knows dogs well. And as many people can verify he is a quick study of people, too.

In one grand move, Charlie snorted at the intruding little white dog, marched over to the woman holding the leash. He lifted his leg and turned the snow on her stylish snow boot a bright yellow. Then as she shrieked and started hopping around trying to avoid the yellow snow puddle, Charlie turned and trotted into the house, his flag tail waiving high in the air.

The woman then turned to me and said in weak voice, “I guess this is his territory.” It was my turn to shrug my shoulders. I then walked back into the house where my daughter was scolding Charlie for being so much like a dog. I told her that I thought he didn’t deserve a scolding. We gave him his favorite dog biscuit, instead. Then Helen, Jill, and I laughed so hard we started crying. We know that the lady and her dog will never visit our front yard again. Charlie made sure of that.