Monday, July 14, 2008, 18:34
Charlie's Friends
As I have looked around me the past few days, I have seen that it is not just Randy and I who are grieving for our Springer Spaniel, Charlie.
My long-haired red and white kitty cat, MaryAnne, who almost always slept in Charlie's kennel with him at night and who stayed with him until I found him Friday morning, will not go into Charlie's kennel now. I have seen her go to the door and look and look and sniff the air. And then she turns away. She has spent some of her time sleeping on the horse feed tub. I have also found her on Randy's workbench.
MaryAnne has never slept on the horse feed tub or the workbench before this.
MaryAnne's red tabby brother, Gilligan, does not even hardly want go on that side of the basement where Charlie's kennel is. My big black tom cat, Rocky, does not go to that side of the basement, either.
Gilligan and Rocky liked to sleep with Charlie, too.
And they, too, are spending their time in other spots: on a chair, on my craft sale book tub, or in other out-of-the-way places.
Henry, Katerina and Dora also will not go into Charlie's kennel. I have seen them, too, go to the door and look and look and sniff and then turn away. Henry, Katerina and Dora, from the time they were little kittens, would always come on the run if they were downstairs to say "Hi" to Charlie when I put him in his kennel.
When I put the leash on our Sheltie, Pixie, out in the yard to take her for a walk, she looks around expectantly, waiting for Charlie to come bounding out of his napping spot by the daylilies.
I expect Charlie to come bounding out, too.
As we walk down the road, Pixie keeps looking back, to see if Charlie is coming, running to catch up with us. I can tell that she is wondering where her friend is and why he is not going for a walk with us.
We have also seen Pixie go to those spots along the foundation where Charlie liked to nap. She sniffs carefully around the whole area, and then sometimes she lays down on that spot. Pixie has never napped by the foundation. She has other shady spots where she likes to lay.
No, it is not just Randy and I who are grieving for Charlie and who miss him so much. His other friends are grieving for him and miss him too.
Sometimes I wonder why I am the way I am about animals. But I don't have to wonder for long. All I have to do is think about my dad. Dad always said we should treat animals the way we would want to be treated ourselves. That is why he was such a good herdsman with the dairy cows. Happy cows do give more milk, after all. My father did not get angry very often, but someone neglecting or mistreating an animal would make him very angry.
It goes beyond Dad, though. Dad's father died when Dad was just a little boy. They were on their way into town, intending to walk to town to get eye glasses for my dad. It had snowed quite a bit the night before, and my grandfather, Charles Paul Ralph, had a heart attack at the end of the driveway and died right in front of my dad.
I was always curious about Charles Ralph. I know he was from Scotland, that he spoke several languages, and that he was, at one time, enrolled in medical school. Once I asked Dad's older sister about him. She did not say much. But what she did say spoke volumes. "He loved the animals. It was always all about the animals for him."
I can maybe take comfort in that -- I come by it honestly.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Saturday, July 12, 2008, 05:11
Charlie
Here was my plan for Friday, July 11: Take Pixie for a walk first thing in the morning. Let Charlie out of his kennel so he could get the kinks out of his joints before I tried to take him for a short walk. Work on my newspaper story. Then take Charlie for a walk. Then feed the horses and finish my newspaper story and send it.
Pixie and I went for a walk up the dirt road Friday morning. It was sticky outside, but not as bad as last Monday. When we arrived home, I let Pixie in the house, then I went downstairs to let Charlie out.
As soon as I turned the corner around the basement stairway, I knew.
Charlie was dead.
Our Springer Spaniel was stretched out on the piece of carpeting in front of the door of his kennel, where he always liked to sleep. But he was dead. He had died sometime in the early morning hours, it seemed.
The night before, I had let Charlie out when I went out to check on the horses. He was his normal self, snooping around the barn and horse pastures, ready to come back inside when I went inside. He had eaten really well on Thursday and his hip joints seemed to be feeling a lot better. He was moving around better, anyway, trotting around the yard and down to the barn.
When I put him in his kennel Thursday night, I gave him a biscuit, which he ate with great gusto. Then he got a drink of water.
As I always do every evening, I opened a can of kitty food for the downstairs/outside kitties. When I had finished putting out the kitty food, I took the fork over to Charlie's kennel so he could lick it off. Charlie always liked to like the kitty food off the fork. It was his job to clean my kitty food fork. It was a job he enjoyed.
And that was the last I saw of Charlie.
With a heavy heart and legs that felt like lead, I climbed the steps. I knew I should call Randy at work to tell him. I could not very well wait until he got home from work. He would never forgive me if Charlie was dead all day and he did not know it. I mean, really. Was I supposed to wait and say when he got home, "Oh, by the way. Charlie is dead."
So I called Randy at work. I could barely get the words out. It was one of the toughest telephone calls I've ever had to make.
My poor husband.
"I'm coming right home," he said.
Forty minutes later, Randy pulled into the driveway. We went downstairs to see Charlie.
"I think it was his heart," I said, as my husband petted his friend, his hunting dog, his faithful companion for 13 years.
"I think his hips were bothering him. But I think the collapsing -- the going down -- I think now -- that was his heart."
How could I have been so stupid? Why didn't I take Charlie into the vet on Wednesday instead of just going for more prednisone? I know Charlie's hips were painful. Wednesday evening a neighbor rode by on a horse, and Charlie ran out to the road. He stood holding up his left hind leg and hopping around like it was painful for him. The prednisone was helping his joints. But why didn't I recognize that when Charlie collapsed those four times this past week, it was his heart? One time years ago when the vet did an x-ray, he thought Charlie had an enlarged heart. And we did know, too, that he had a heart murmur. He developed the heart murmur after that terrible infection two years ago following surgery for the fatty tumors.
But the vets always told us that Charlie would be coughing in the morning when he started moving around if his heart was bad.
Charlie never coughed in the morning.
I think my little kitty Dora knew something was going on, even the night before, on Thursday night. I always put Henry, Katerina and Dora downstairs at night. Once we try to settle down to go to sleep, that's when they spring into action mode and are tearing around the house, chasing each other and playing with everything imaginable. Snowflake used to do that, too. But there was only one of her. I am thinking that when they get older and settle down a little bit, then they can be upstairs at night if they want to be. For now, usually they are content to stay downstairs. It is part of their routine.
But after I said goodnight to Charlie and headed upstairs, Dora insisted on coming upstairs again. I told her she could stay upstairs if she promised to be a good kitty.
Dora spent the night snuggled up tight with me. I got up once to go to the bathroom. She came to the bathroom with me and then returned and curled up in the crook of my legs again. When I got up in the morning, she stayed very close to me, and I had a hard time getting dressed without stepping on her and getting out the door with Pixie without Dora coming, too. Somehow, I think she knew "something."
Randy and I buried Charlie in the east side yard, in view of the house and both driveways. Then we got the tractor out and moved a rock table that was in the west side yard to put over Charlie's grave. The "rock table" is a slab of rock that sits on three smaller rocks. It is not THE rock table -- the bigger table that's in the west side yard. But we wanted the smaller rock table (easier to move) because Charlie always loved it when we sat on the rock table and he could get pets and treats.
Randy says he thinks Charlie died at 4 a.m. He says he woke up then, and that the thought in his head was "Charlie." Then Pixie started moving around, as she does at night when it's hot, going from one cool spot on the linoleum to another. And he just figured maybe it was Pixie's tags jingling that woke him up.
Charlie did not suffer, I don't think. He was lying in front of his kennel door. He hadn't been staggering around. He hadn't been thrashing around. He was just lying there as if he were asleep.
God Bless my long-haired red and white kitty MaryAnne. She loved to sleep in Charlie's kennel with him, curled up on the blankets next to him, sometimes draped over him when it was cold in the winter. Friday morning, she stayed in the kennel with him until I found him. When Randy and I were saying our goodbyes to Charlie before we wrapped him up in his quilt, MaryAnne came over to us, chirping and meowing, as if she were trying to comfort us.
I don't know how long it will take for the shock to wear off that Charlie is gone. I was hoping we might have him with us for a couple of more years yet. I know that everything I do around the place, everywhere I go for a walk, is going to remind me of Charlie for years and years to come. He was with me all of the time whenever I was outside. In the barn. In the horse pastures. Down in the garden. And if it was too hot to be moving around much, he would watch me from underneath the cedar tree next to the house. He was a loving dog and full of enthusiasm for life. Even when he didn't feel well, he tried to be cheerful and enthusiastic.
As I always told all of the UPS drivers and the FedEx drivers, "Watch out. He's liable to get in the truck with you. I've always said the worst thing he'd do is knock someone down so he could lick their face." And then, of course, they would always pet Charlie and make a big deal out of him.
As I told Randy while we were digging Charlie's grave -- this burying of our animal family members got old a long time ago: Guinevere in January, Winifred in May, Duke in June, Simon Peter in June. And now Charlie.
LeAnn R. Ralph