Charlie

At what point do you make the decision that you can no longer afford your dog? And once you arrive at that agonizing decision, what do you do?

I got Charlie, a bearded collie, in September 2005. He was 10 years old, had been fed but otherwise neglected for most of his life, and he had developed a terrible peeing problem. He had been tested for possible health-related issues, but none were indicated. No diabetes. No Cushing’s Disease. My hope was that the peeing was his response to being neglected and that love would overcome all. It didn’t work out that way.

Charlie was housetrained. When he went outside, he did exactly what was expected. Unfortunately, he also peed volumes in the house. The dog was a fire hose. He barked incessantly, so even though he loved being outdoors, I couldn’t leave him out for more than a few minutes if I wanted to maintain my good neighbor status.

With hope for redemption, I spent hundreds of dollars on “belly bands”—male dog diapers—and extra liners. They were helpful as damage control, but they merely limited the amount of urine poured directly into my carpet. I then spent another multiple hundred dollars and bought the best carpet shampooer I could find and used it regularly. In what became an ongoing desperate grab for solutions or even the tiniest of mitigations, Glade plug-ins and Fabreze were employed in further attempts to overcome the Charlie Effect.

As for loving care, Charlie wasn’t much into bonding. He was sweet… or perhaps “benign” would be a better term. Sometimes he would almost giggle when I rubbed his belly, but often when I would pet him, he really wanted none of it and would move away from the attention.

As the mother of an only child who is now 27 years old and quite independent, I nevertheless found myself washing a load of diapers every week. I was the plow horse for a carpet shampooer. And I was the hostage of a dog with the apathetic and “fuck you” temperament of a teen-ager that was destroying my budget and turning my house into a urinal.

A few months ago I started having furtive thoughts of having Charlie euthanized, and I recoiled that I could even entertain such a thought and still consider myself an ardent animal lover. Could I possibly find another home for him? Oh sure, brilliant. Who in their right mind would embrace a now-12-year-old dog that pees everywhere and barks incessantly? Even the idea of a farm that might allow him to be an outdoor dog was stopped cold with the thought of Wisconsin sub-zero temperatures. And I’m not the kind of person who feels comfortable making my problem someone else’s responsibility. I continued to be appalled at myself for contemplating doing anything but The Right Thing and marching into the future on the path I had chosen in rescuing this dog. Every option I considered was agonizing.

Last month I brought it up to Scott, waiting for him to give me an “I thought I knew you better than this” look. But he was completely sympathetic and said I’d given it my best and that he would never expect me to ruin my life for this cause. We talked about euthanasia, the Bearded Collie Rescue, and if it would be best to wait until Bill (my 14-year-old dog) passed to do anything. Bill and Charlie got along but were even less bonded than Charlie and I were.

A couple weeks ago, I brought the subject up to my friend Lori, who was equally supportive. I contacted the lady at the Bearded Collie Rescue, and she said Charlie would be virtually impossible to place. I was amazed that even she was supportive of euthanasia as a potentially appropriate option. I started considering it in more near-future terms.

I assumed my regular veterinarian would consider it unethical to euthanize a dog that still had good years left in him, so I considered an emergency clinic where I would have anonymity. But then I decided I didn’t want to feel like I was skulking around, and I would rather have Dr. Christman openly disagree with me and perhaps think me hard-hearted than to feel sneaky. When I talked to her, she was so compassionate and echoed the views of the others I’d talked to. “You’ve done your best with him, we haven’t been able to find out what the problem is, and something about him is not right.”

Saturday morning Scott and I loaded Bill and Charlie into the car and went to our appointment with Dr. Christman. Just as when she helped Murray make his exit with the final stages of lymphoma, Dr. Christman made Charlie’s passing more like a holy ritual than a veterinary procedure. Afterwards she hugged me and said, “You made the right decision.”

The happiest memories I have of Charlie are when I would walk him and Bill to the beach at the lake a few blocks from my house. I would let him off leash, and he would run and dance and gallop with the joy of a spring lamb. When I get his ashes back, that’s where I’ll scatter them.

A quote from Ralph Bloom goes, “We are not doers. We are deciders. Once we decide, the doing is easy.” I don’t know that the doing was easy, but the decision was certainly the hardest part. I hope Charlie is at peace and galloping along a lakeshore. I know I’m experiencing the most peace I’ve had in well over a year.