CHUCK

12/17/1996-08/31/2012

 (written by Dad, but we pasted it here.)

Our incredible dog, Chuck, was a member of the family for a long, long while.

Chuck appeared one day when we were looking for Charlie, another pup that was stolen from our yard.   Susana brought Charlie home much to my protest because I really did not have the time nor energy to house train a dog and all the other ramifications involved in having a pet.  When Charlie was lost, or we think stolen from our yard, we posted notices all over the neighborhood as to the lost dog.  A neighbor one block over called about a week later to tell us she had found our dog.  I went over, opened the car door and Chuck jumped in.  Chuck pretended to be Charlie and confused us into keeping him but we have been glad he did from day one.  It was funny with him because at the beginning, we thought his owner would reappear and claim him so we did not want to become too attached. He would have none of it and attached himself to us and then there was no turning back, whether the owner appeared or not.

He was my weekday alarm clock, but let me sleep in on weekends.  This was an incredible  factor where he was conscious of time to the extent that if the alarm clock did not ring, he was always there to wake me up no later than a minute after it should have sounded. How he did this is beyond any understanding.  How he altered his plan on weekends and HOLIDAYS is just uncanny. In family gatherings, at 10:15 or 10:30, he would begin “talking” to me so that we would clear the gathering and go to sleep.  If I ignored him long enough, he would go in and I was on my own with the group.  He was cognizant of the clients that visited that liked pets and would go to them and greet them while totally staying his ground when they had no pet “vibes” at all.

For fifteen years I started and ended each day with a walk with Chuck.  At 6:00 he would wait patiently (and sometimes not) for me to instill my contacts and we would walk half a block to  the south while he did what he had to, look out at a distance and philosophize about life , then come in and have breakfast with me while I read the paper or listened to news.  In his later years, the medicine routine became a part of the activity.  He would wait for me until 11:00 after class to cap the day.  Here, the walk was to the north, which would be the entire block. After an exhausting day, what a way to end it.  But what a way to bond with a true friend.  There wasn’t a blade of grass he would not examine all the way around the long block of our house.

He was internationally loved.  Family and friends from Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico, all knew about and asked about Chuck and his welfare.  My students knew of him and asked about him since he was a frequent mention of mine in class. I always told student he was a harder grader than I was so that if they got a bad grade, it was my assistant’s fault.

Then he got ill. He started coughing a lot and his lifelong vet told me the coughing had to be controlled as it was symptomatic of heart issues.  We started him on a multiple medication plan and that seemed to work.  He developed a cancerous tumor on his nose in 2011 and a chemotherapy plan was put in motion where Susana would take him for treatment regularly.  He was such a champion.  The doctors had warned us of all the side effects of the treatment and had given us medicines for all of it and he had none of it.  He was a little down and exhausted but that was about it.  He was cleared and received his cancer survivor pin a few months later.   His nose was completely back to normal.

But his coughing continued and was more complex.  His heart had now enlarged and was compressing his thorax and he had difficulty breathing.  His long, long walks became shorter and shorter and, tried though he did, he would faint often when exerted.  On Friday of Labor Day weekend, we were both laying in bed late.  He suddenly got up, came to me, licked my face several times, and laid across my legs as he would like to do.  He ended his journey with us there. The children and indeed the family had gathered around him.  He breathed with a lot of effort and expired peacefully surrounded by all who loved him.

This was a difficult, difficult day and Chuck is not going to be forgotten.  He meant a lot to all of us and had an impact on everyone he met without of course saying a word.

Chuck is truly another of our blessings.    We are thankful we spent part of our lives with such a dear friend and family member.