ForkedTung
Serpent Mound Monk
Charrcoal, RIP: 1995-2009
7/4/2009
Well, I woke up with the sun this morning and without Charr in the house, I went outside, cried a little and came back in...the lights were on upstairs and I heard sniffling...River was up as well and crying because he still missed Charr as well after putiing him to rest yesterday, we talked about him and decided to write this.
I got Charr from a farm in Illinois, I went there with Peg (old GF) specifically because they had a female Shepard/Lab mix, that I had been looking for...Well they let them out and I was pretty sure I wanted this lil girl mix when I glanced up and saw this chubby little gray dog watching from another pen, He was in there with a bunch of Weener pups less than half his size. I asked about him and they said he should've been in with the Shep/Labs but had apparently climbed a 3 foot chicken wire fence to get in there to eat the Weener pups food...They told me he was a Weimariner, Lab, Chow etc...mix. I said you should probably let that one out as well. Well we had named him Charr within 10 minutes of having bought him, I paid $60.
Some highlights and some of what Charr would consider lowlights of his life:
I had him trained by about 3-4 months of age...stay, sit, down, rollover, easiest dog to train, ever.
Him sitting by my Dad's fireplace and farting and jumping up and looking back, scared to bits by his own fart...heh heh.
I then moved to Colorado and while driving there by myself and sleeping at rest stops, that chubby little puppy would growl at anyone that got to close to the truck...tuff little bugger from the get-go.
Backpacking/camping with Charr and he would bring back Deer/Elk legs in every stage of decomposition...bone to rotting to fresh.
I brought him to work, when I was a carpenter and he would sleep under the sawhorses ( with the saw going mere feet from his head). One day he climbed a ladder to the roof of a farmhouse we were restoring and went to sleep on the ridge. At that same house he found this Donkey sleeping in a pasture and decided it might be fun to run around it barking...that was until the donkey had enough and lumbered up and chased him off with his tail between his legs.
He jumped out of the back of my pickup while I was driving slowly through the High Plains to chase a Pronghorn Antelope, that Antelope knew he had no chance of catching him and when Charr would tire and stop, so would the antelope...
While on a job-site he got quilled by porcupine in his nose, lips, gums chin and tongue ( he looked like he had a full goatee), took myself, my boss, a pair of pliers, many snow packs and a few hours to get them all out... he never tried to bite, but by the last few he was almost impossible to hold still.
In Texas, while my GF and I were moving there, Peg had taken him already and he was "lightly" hit by a car, no injuries and "arrested" he got loose and was picked up. I guess he was pretty happy when my friend Jason was the first to see him in "jail".
Charr never much bothered other animals...except of course squirrels... and I think that hatred can be attributed to one squirrel in particular: My friend Joe had a dog Duchamp, a Shep mix and him and Charr got along like brothers that didn't have much tolerance for each other...one thing they shared was hatred for this squirrel that would specifically walk to the end of this fence in the back yard just to "b@@@h" at the dogs, there is no other word for it. This squirrel would just go there and b@@@h at those two dogs, while they were jumping up and down, barking to get him. If that squirrel had ever fallen it would've been hamburger.
Charr was missing once for almost three days in Texas, as I was on the phone with the local paper putting an missing ad in, out of the corner of my eye I saw him slink up onto the back porch and lay down, in the manner of him thinking " If I act normal, as I've been here the whole time, maybe they won't notice I've been gone?" He was skinny, dirty and scruffy...there may in fact be a few "little" Charr's out there somewhere in Texas to this day???
He used to go fishing and canoeing with me...One time he went off into the woods while we were bank fishing and we left him on the bank, well that didn't stop him he swam 100 yards out to the canoe and we pulled him right in
One time I foul hooked this Carp so it couldn't submerge but for more than a few seconds, well Charr always came running when he heard the drag on my fishing line squeal...he would mouht the fish, but never bite them. Well I let this Carp go and it would swim down and then bob up, Char swam out after it and when he would get close the Carp would go under, then Charr would swim in a circle, fish would bob back up, Charr would swim over then the Carp would again go under, Charr would circle, this continued for about ten minutes...hilarious.
I went surface prospecting for arrowheads at this park once during the day and not four feet off the trail this giant beast jumped up and I thought immediately "Bear!", Well there weren't any bear in that part of Texas, but there were some very big Feral Boar/ Hog. So this, at least two hundred pounder jumps up, scares the crap out of me and takes off through the brush, so what does Charr do...takes off after it, I screamed for him to come back and after a few seconds I heard him turn around and head back, crazy dog!
One time as I was coming home and Charr was in the back of the truck he saw a couple of strange guys on the front porch of his home talking to Sonja, well Charr hadn't approved of that meeting and for the second time jumped out of the back of the truck, ran up and physically inserted himself between Sonja and the strangers.
Charr was always more than happy to go wake the kids up in the morning...I would say "let's got get Frankie up." and he knew exactly what to do, run upstairs, jump on the bed and start licking any exposed kid parts until they woke up.
When River was born, Charr would sometimes put himself between any unfamiliar people that came over to see "his boy" and just stand there.. a real " Just to let you know I'm here to bite your butt, if anything goes wrong " attitude to his stance.
Charr was pretty much, take-it-or-leave-it with any adults he didn't know, but he loved children, just loved them but especially babies. Just a few days before Charr got sick for the last time, an old neighbor brought her new two month old baby girl over. She was approaching the front steps and Charr was on the porch and even though had had slight cataracts saw the baby, he got up and quickly approached the mom, holding the baby, well she knew Charr, but was taken back by his approach, I said he just wants to see the baby...so, trusting me and Charr, she lowered the baby and without a sniff or a thought Charr gave that baby a soft lick on the leg, it was so cool, he had the softest tongue for a dog and doled his kisses out sparingly, except of course when it came to kids.
There's so much more...
Some of the things I'll miss about Charr:
Petting him: Running my hand from the knuckle of his head along the bones of his shoulder as his fur changed from a soft fuzz to his heavier, thicker coat and finally along his hips to his bushy tail that he would always pull away from me when I got to the end, I can feel it as I write this...
His Eyes: They started out when he was a puppy as a pale grey and later changed to a dark amber reddish color, but it wasn't the color that was striking, rather the thoughtful inteligence to be found there, Charr really "looked" at you, he watched, he stared, he contemplated...
His love for his brother River: watching those two together, River always brought out the puppy in him, he would always whine when I told him that River was coming over, run to the door, out to the porch and stand there looking in the direction of where Sonja would be driving up with "his" boy. Charr always went to grab a bone because he wanted River to throw it for him.
River will miss: When he whines for River when he's here and his kisses.
We love you Charr.
7/4/2009
Well, I woke up with the sun this morning and without Charr in the house, I went outside, cried a little and came back in...the lights were on upstairs and I heard sniffling...River was up as well and crying because he still missed Charr as well after putiing him to rest yesterday, we talked about him and decided to write this.
I got Charr from a farm in Illinois, I went there with Peg (old GF) specifically because they had a female Shepard/Lab mix, that I had been looking for...Well they let them out and I was pretty sure I wanted this lil girl mix when I glanced up and saw this chubby little gray dog watching from another pen, He was in there with a bunch of Weener pups less than half his size. I asked about him and they said he should've been in with the Shep/Labs but had apparently climbed a 3 foot chicken wire fence to get in there to eat the Weener pups food...They told me he was a Weimariner, Lab, Chow etc...mix. I said you should probably let that one out as well. Well we had named him Charr within 10 minutes of having bought him, I paid $60.
Some highlights and some of what Charr would consider lowlights of his life:
I had him trained by about 3-4 months of age...stay, sit, down, rollover, easiest dog to train, ever.
Him sitting by my Dad's fireplace and farting and jumping up and looking back, scared to bits by his own fart...heh heh.
I then moved to Colorado and while driving there by myself and sleeping at rest stops, that chubby little puppy would growl at anyone that got to close to the truck...tuff little bugger from the get-go.
Backpacking/camping with Charr and he would bring back Deer/Elk legs in every stage of decomposition...bone to rotting to fresh.
I brought him to work, when I was a carpenter and he would sleep under the sawhorses ( with the saw going mere feet from his head). One day he climbed a ladder to the roof of a farmhouse we were restoring and went to sleep on the ridge. At that same house he found this Donkey sleeping in a pasture and decided it might be fun to run around it barking...that was until the donkey had enough and lumbered up and chased him off with his tail between his legs.
He jumped out of the back of my pickup while I was driving slowly through the High Plains to chase a Pronghorn Antelope, that Antelope knew he had no chance of catching him and when Charr would tire and stop, so would the antelope...
While on a job-site he got quilled by porcupine in his nose, lips, gums chin and tongue ( he looked like he had a full goatee), took myself, my boss, a pair of pliers, many snow packs and a few hours to get them all out... he never tried to bite, but by the last few he was almost impossible to hold still.
In Texas, while my GF and I were moving there, Peg had taken him already and he was "lightly" hit by a car, no injuries and "arrested" he got loose and was picked up. I guess he was pretty happy when my friend Jason was the first to see him in "jail".
Charr never much bothered other animals...except of course squirrels... and I think that hatred can be attributed to one squirrel in particular: My friend Joe had a dog Duchamp, a Shep mix and him and Charr got along like brothers that didn't have much tolerance for each other...one thing they shared was hatred for this squirrel that would specifically walk to the end of this fence in the back yard just to "b@@@h" at the dogs, there is no other word for it. This squirrel would just go there and b@@@h at those two dogs, while they were jumping up and down, barking to get him. If that squirrel had ever fallen it would've been hamburger.
Charr was missing once for almost three days in Texas, as I was on the phone with the local paper putting an missing ad in, out of the corner of my eye I saw him slink up onto the back porch and lay down, in the manner of him thinking " If I act normal, as I've been here the whole time, maybe they won't notice I've been gone?" He was skinny, dirty and scruffy...there may in fact be a few "little" Charr's out there somewhere in Texas to this day???
He used to go fishing and canoeing with me...One time he went off into the woods while we were bank fishing and we left him on the bank, well that didn't stop him he swam 100 yards out to the canoe and we pulled him right in
One time I foul hooked this Carp so it couldn't submerge but for more than a few seconds, well Charr always came running when he heard the drag on my fishing line squeal...he would mouht the fish, but never bite them. Well I let this Carp go and it would swim down and then bob up, Char swam out after it and when he would get close the Carp would go under, then Charr would swim in a circle, fish would bob back up, Charr would swim over then the Carp would again go under, Charr would circle, this continued for about ten minutes...hilarious.
I went surface prospecting for arrowheads at this park once during the day and not four feet off the trail this giant beast jumped up and I thought immediately "Bear!", Well there weren't any bear in that part of Texas, but there were some very big Feral Boar/ Hog. So this, at least two hundred pounder jumps up, scares the crap out of me and takes off through the brush, so what does Charr do...takes off after it, I screamed for him to come back and after a few seconds I heard him turn around and head back, crazy dog!
One time as I was coming home and Charr was in the back of the truck he saw a couple of strange guys on the front porch of his home talking to Sonja, well Charr hadn't approved of that meeting and for the second time jumped out of the back of the truck, ran up and physically inserted himself between Sonja and the strangers.
Charr was always more than happy to go wake the kids up in the morning...I would say "let's got get Frankie up." and he knew exactly what to do, run upstairs, jump on the bed and start licking any exposed kid parts until they woke up.
When River was born, Charr would sometimes put himself between any unfamiliar people that came over to see "his boy" and just stand there.. a real " Just to let you know I'm here to bite your butt, if anything goes wrong " attitude to his stance.
Charr was pretty much, take-it-or-leave-it with any adults he didn't know, but he loved children, just loved them but especially babies. Just a few days before Charr got sick for the last time, an old neighbor brought her new two month old baby girl over. She was approaching the front steps and Charr was on the porch and even though had had slight cataracts saw the baby, he got up and quickly approached the mom, holding the baby, well she knew Charr, but was taken back by his approach, I said he just wants to see the baby...so, trusting me and Charr, she lowered the baby and without a sniff or a thought Charr gave that baby a soft lick on the leg, it was so cool, he had the softest tongue for a dog and doled his kisses out sparingly, except of course when it came to kids.
There's so much more...
Some of the things I'll miss about Charr:
Petting him: Running my hand from the knuckle of his head along the bones of his shoulder as his fur changed from a soft fuzz to his heavier, thicker coat and finally along his hips to his bushy tail that he would always pull away from me when I got to the end, I can feel it as I write this...
His Eyes: They started out when he was a puppy as a pale grey and later changed to a dark amber reddish color, but it wasn't the color that was striking, rather the thoughtful inteligence to be found there, Charr really "looked" at you, he watched, he stared, he contemplated...
His love for his brother River: watching those two together, River always brought out the puppy in him, he would always whine when I told him that River was coming over, run to the door, out to the porch and stand there looking in the direction of where Sonja would be driving up with "his" boy. Charr always went to grab a bone because he wanted River to throw it for him.
River will miss: When he whines for River when he's here and his kisses.
We love you Charr.
