The Sock-hungry Wild Beast

Charlie, who gives me happiness and makes me smile even on a bad day, who smells like his tick prevention shampoo (on a good day), who gives me wet, slobbery dog kisses that even though they are disgusting make me smile.  He has light brown/goldish HAIR not fur.  He fits right in with the family too, even he has allergies, like the rest of my family.  His dark brown eyes that look up at me everyday with so much expression, his tail, neck and nose all have adorable white spots. 

Every day, he is there.  The moment I walk in the door, if he is not on a walk he greets me with a tail wagging a million times a second, or so it seems.  He has a whole routine, I will walk in, he will come bounding over happy to see me.  I will pet him then when I stand up to put my backpack down he leans against me like a cat.  Finally, the moment he has been waiting for is when I take of my shoes, he eyes my feet like a tiger and pounces.  All of my socks have holes in them, it has been his favorite game since he was a puppy.  After running around with my sock for a while, he comes back to our pantry, this is where he knows we keep his favorite treats.  He will scratch the door with his paw, to tell us he wants one.  We don’t give him one every time because he begs to much for that, but we will give him one once and a while.  Whenever I give him a treat I will ask for a double high five or we will play hide and seek.  I will tell him to stay then go hide somewhere in the house.  Then, I will yell “OK” and he will come find me.  Sometimes he will run right past me then stop, slide a little and back track.  Every time he finds me he is overly enthusiastic.  Charlie is a smart dog too.  When we first brought him home he learned how to open the doors.  Also when he was a little puppy we had a big white gate in our kitchen to prevent him from chewing up our rugs, this system worked until one day we were playing our usual sock game.  It was me and my brother against Charlie.  My brother, Hans was running away from our sock-hungry, wild puppy, and so he took off his socks and threw them over the gate.  Charlie wanted those socks so badly, and he was so hyper he jumped the gate that even I cannot jump, lets just say Charlie won that game…

~ Isabelle W.