Charlie in Charge

If Charlie the dog gets outside unleashed, he makes a run for it, usually to my neighbor Gordon’s yard. Since it hasn’t been tended since 1953, he can easily vanish into it, like a victim in a Stephen King novel.

Yesterday, I let him walk out without a leash and he took off.

Here’s the thing. I always know there’s an almost 100% chance he’ll run but I let him out anyway. It’s like I want to give him the thrill of adventure. I think this is what they call projection.

Anyway, he disappeared into Gordon’s yard, which was fine for around ten minutes. That’s how long it takes me to start cataloguing the terrible fates that might have befallen him. Eaten by a fox, blinded by a feral cat, made rabid by a raccoon.

Like any faux responsible animal mama, I began calling his name, alternating between coaxing and authoritative. Then, I spotted him, not in Gordon’s yard, but in our backyard neighbor’s yard, right next to their screened porch, pooping.

How embarrassing! I started trying to mince my way around the poison ivy to climb the stone wall to grab him. I was making progress when I saw him turn and walk inside the house. I don’t remember his tail curling like that was my thought before it hit me that this dog wasn’t Charlie.

By now twenty minutes had passed and I began to worry. What if this time, unlike the eighty-four times preceding it, he really was lost? It was time for me to ditch my Crocs for sneakers and get serious about finding him.

I walked briskly down our driveway and was nearly to the street, shouting his name, cursing myself, vowing to never let him out to run free again if came back alive, when I happened to glance behind me. There was Charlie, sitting on our front steps.

Of course he came back. Where else would he get fed at the dining room table, on his own little plate, a doggie portion of whatever the humans were having for dinner? Where else would he take turns spooning first a woman, then her husband, from the downy comfort of their shared queen bed?

Charlie’s expression as I walked toward him was, as always, inscrutable, but his body language said it all. His was an attitude of pure relaxed confidence, because unlike me, he never has to question who’s in charge.