Dear Charlie…
Last August we took a long-awaited RV vacation to Glacier National Park and several places in Eastern Washington. On the second day of our adventure we were staying in a small RV park on the Coeur d’Alene river, about 30 miles east of Coeur d’Alene. Shortly after getting set up a Great Pyrenees dog showed up at our camp site. He had no collar, seemed kind of indifferent to my efforts to befriend him, and appeared to be sniffing around looking for food scrapes left by previous campers. After a while I did manage to make friends with him.
After a couple of hours, two women showed up looking for this dog, and we learned his name is Charlie. One of these women said they were looking after Charlie on behalf of her daughter. She asked if we could help them retrieve Charlie. I managed to get ahold of him, but as they approached with his collar and lead he vigorously squirmed out of my grasp. He stayed near me but was clearly leery of them.
I decided to see if I could pick Charlie up, hoping to put him in the back of their car. Big mistake!!! In my effort to lift this 120lb. + pooch, I tore my right bicep… completely separating it from its attach point in my arm.
In spite of the pain in my arm, I took the collar and lead from one of the women… walk away from their car, and called Charlie to come to me. Charlie immediately ran over to me… throwing himself at my feet, belly up. This was so sad… I knew what he was trying to covey to me… he couldn’t have made it any clearer if he spoke English. Still, my only practical choice was to put his collar on him, clip on the lead, and hand him over to his caretaker. The women said they lived only a short distance away, and said they had retrieved him in the past by holding the lead out the window of their car, driving home slowly as he trots along beside the car. This is how Charlie and the women left us.
My bicep has been surgically repaired, but my heart is still broken for Charlie… So I wrote the following letter to him…
Dear Charlie,
I’m so sorry I couldn’t take you with me…
When the woman came to get you…
You ran from her and over to me…
You through yourself on your back at my feet… Belly up to me…
Saying with your actions and sweet pleading eyes…
“Take me… I will do whatever you want…
I know you will be good to me…
Please take me… Don’t make me go with that person…
I don’t like her… she is not nice to me…
I want to stay with you…”
I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep you, Charlie…
I know you are a good and very loving boy…
I am sending loving thoughts to you…
I’m also sending kind thoughts to the people who care for you…
So they will love you and care for you properly!!!
Your human friend,
Mal, AKA Steve
