Charlie Poodle

Brian and Teresa and Riley are on a two-week trip to Germany to visit friends (and enjoy an unexpected World Cup victory for their host nation). We volunteered to dog-sit Charlie, their standard poodle and a good friend of the family's. I like to call him Uncle Charlie, though as a nickname it hasn't taken root. Maybe Barb and the girls aren't familiar enough with My Three Sons. 

In any event, we got Charlie on Saturday -- so, three days ago. It's been fun, though taking care of an energetic dog like him is definitely a task. Not necessarily Herculean, but at least Ferrignoean. The girls love him, but Suzanne loves him so much it hurts. She loves to walk him. She'll fight you for the privilege of walking him. She loves hugging him, and straddling him as if he were a horse, and ordering him around ("Drop it, Chawlie!" she cries. "Drop it!" "Slow down, Chawlie!" "Sit, Chawlie, sit!"). He doesn't seem to mind. He's a good boy. When she came into our bed last night around four in the morning, she cried "Doggy!" in delight. She was much more thrilled that Charlie had crawled into bed with us than either of her parents. She often calls him "Basil," because her best friend Jasper has a standard poodle named Basil.

Thanks to Charlie, Suzanne is developing her throwing arm, slobber-be-damned.

And yet I maintain that we'll never own a dog.

Suzanne loves walking Charlie all by herself -- until he lunges forward and pulls her to the ground and she gets hurt.