I am sad to say, that the main man in my life, King Charlie my King Charles Spaniel and companion who went nearly everywhere with me has passed.
On May 19th I got a call at school from my dog walker saying they were at my place to pick up my doggo King Charlie and he wasn’t moving. She couldn’t even detect breathing. I could tell by her voice that he had passed but she was trying to figure out a way to remain positive, that maybe he was just sick. I asked her to take him to his vet, trying to hold it together while I talked to her.
I told her I would hurry there too. I went out and looked at my scooter, sat down, texted my bff in her class, and started crying. She came out and drove me to the vet.
Charlie had indeed passed. I had kind of prepared for an abrupt passing from the day I found him and took him to the vet and the vet warned me about Mitral Valve Disease which affects around half of all King Charles before the age of 5 and nearly all by 10. Which can cause a without warning passing of the doggo. But he never showed any signs of it in his yearly checkups. Without a true autopsy, the vet told me it appeared he had suffered an ischemic stroke. Something else the King Charles breed is known for because of a variety of reasons. He never showed any signs that he may be a candidate for one though. So he had never had any CT scans or MRIs to check for those. One of the biggest signs is pain in the poor doggo and Charlie never showed any signs of that. In fact, he was always happy and lived a very active lifestyle. I couldn’t bring myself to have an autopsy done, which didn’t really matter as he was already gone. So I had him cremated and placed in a little rosewood box, with a lovely bronze plate and took him back home.
I spent the rest of the night crying on my bff’s shoulder.
I’d met Charlie just over 4 years ago. I was filling my scooter with gas and took a few things to throw away in the dumpster when I heard a noise. I looked under it and saw his little nose. I couldn’t reach him and he just lay there whimpering. I tried to move the dumpster, but as freakishly strong as I may be, mass is another thing and I was unable to move it. The guy in the gas station wouldn’t come out and help me so I called my older sister and she and a couple of her guy friends came and they moved it. We took him to the vet our family has used for years.
Charlie had four broken ribs and his front left leg was broken in three places. No collar. A LOT of cuts and abrasions. One eye was swollen nearly shut. It was obvious he had gotten out from somewhere and gotten hit by a car then crawled under the dumpster.
He stayed at the vet for over a week and I visited him daily. Paid for all his bills and made sure the vet got him back to full health, then took him home. I didn’t care that someone else might be missing him at that point. I couldn’t let that trusting absolutely adorable face leave my life. It took Charlie a long time to get back to 100%. The vet thought he would never really get there. He said he would walk with a limp, and always be shorter of breath because of laying on the broken ribs on his lungs for who knows how long.
Charlie proved him wrong though. By the time he was with me for a year, he was running when I went jogging. Crawling all over the hills and mountains with me hiking. Swimming in pools and the ocean like he had been born a merdog. He loved getting into the mix when I played basketball with friends and showed his support by barking and running around us outside. At the dojo, he would sit quietly and watch while I trained, sparred, and taught. I think he really understood what I was doing. He loved going out on the boat with me, even just the two of us, and sitting on the deck, barking at the pelicans that would roost up on the zodiac out of his reach.
He loved wearing his life jacket and jumping into the ocean off the deck. He was a diving dog it seemed and this was a favorite game of his. He did this at the pool too. The little swimmers loved it when Charlie would join us for lessons. Paddling around keeping an eye on everyone to make sure things were ok. If I went surfing, he would sit just out of reach of the surf, watching. Friends would tell me he knew exactly who I was out there. He’d follow me with his eyes or then run along the beach to keep an eye on me. I’m sure given the chance he would have been right out on the board with me. Another favorite of his, I have an electric longboard (skateboard) and he loved running alongside it like my bike or if he got tired, riding in my pack looking out. He’d bark hello at people like when he was in his little trailer behind my bike or scooter as we went by. Always so friendly and sociable.
As time wore on, we got into a wonderful schedule. I’d get up and workout, while he slept in. Then off we’d go to teach the little swimmers. If I had professors that didn’t care, he’d join me in class, sitting and watching everyone. If not, the walker would pick him up and take him home or to doggie daycare. When school got out, I’d pick him up and we’d go to the dojo where I’d train and then teach. Every couple of nights we would stop and get dinner, weather permitting, eat outside together, and have a walk. Then onto home where he’d get a nightly shower. He loved spinning in the shower with the rain head on him. A good drying, and relaxing time, then off to bed.
I have posted many photos in places of his sidelong judgmental looks over the years. He just had the perfect side eye for it. Truth be told though, he was a very active, sociable, loving little guy that proved the vet wrong about his lifestyle after the accident. Every time we’d go in for his yearly checkup, the vet would shower him with praise for what a good boy he’d grown into. We never saw any reason though, to think something else would take him so fast and young.
I want to believe the short time we were together he led a very happy life. I know he made mine better in ways that cannot be counted. This coming weekend, he will have his ashes spread out into the ocean, where he and I had our best times together, just the two of us hanging out. I know he’d like that.
To quote Caroline Knapp; “Before you get a dog, you can’t quite imagine what living with one might be like; afterward, you can’t imagine living any other way. ”
I still cry every night when I go to bed. I miss him terribly.
