Lessons Learned Revisited

Charles Fitzwilliam has been an adorable addition to our family. However, as my sister Marianne states, it is like having another baby. Eight months old when we brought him home, almost a year ago (thanks Lyndsey-Gayle and Tara Lee!) he won us over in a big way. Easy going, cheerful, playful, cuddly... he's fun.

Early on we learned that we had to watch what we left lying around. Still a puppy he liked to chew. We didn't pay attention to the fact that his rawhide bone was gone and one afternoon found many artifacts in the backyard; a destroyed tissue box, a chewed "Arizona Highways," a descimated hair clip, etc. Yet, still, we were careless. Helen, frantically trying to finish Christmas stockings for new additions to the family, came in to find her work lying on the ground. Not unraveled but the still attatched yarn ran out the dog door. She followed it and found her ball of yarn. He improved but still made off with Michael's iPod nano once, thankfully only the earbuds were hurt. Allison has lost a glasses case but, thank heavens, not the glasses.

We had heard that his sister, Minnie, was much smaller but able to leap onto the counter in JoLynn's kitchen. Charlie had never! So it was a surprise to us at Halloween when Helen and I were in the sunroom and Charlie was frenetically dashing in and out of the dog door at 30 second intervals. I stood, looked in the dining area and caught him red-pawed on the table stealing candy. Outside, tucked under the concrete rain gutter diverter, we found ten candy wrappers. Mostly Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and a few Almond Joys thrown in. At least he has good taste.

You'd think we'd learned, but sometimes we forget. One Sunday afternoon we were relaxing in the sunroom and saw Charles chewing on something strange in the backyard. White, lumpy and too big for his mouth. It was a hamburger bun. Now, we have barbequed burgers as a Sunday tradition every week after church (a far cry from Helen's linen, silver and china set dinners of roast or fried chicken) and we wondered how he'd gotten a hold of it. Then I remembered... I had purchased two packages of buns and we'd only taken one from the table. In the back we found an empty plastic bag. Eight hamburger buns! We felt good that at least he had only dispatched with seven. Later he came in the house and uncharacteristically had to be strongly coaxed to sit with us on the couch. Once on my lap he kept his head diverted. Yeah, he had another bun in his mouth. We were down to six. Another search of the yard yielded one more hunk of bread. So, only five. Worry over the effect on his health and weight were put to rest once his cousin Sam visited and they ran for three days straight.