Marshmellow Fluff

Saturday marked a special day for Charlie.  It was the very first time he has been to the dog park in almost four years. 

Charlie hasn’t ventured to this type of social setting for so long because he has been on restriction and, more importantly, because I am a responsible dog owner, with concern for the dog population at large.  One would think that Charlie, who resembles a scruffy cartoon dog, was much too cute to engage in violence.  His big brown soulful eyes, his poofy Pompadour on the top of his fluffy head, nothing with such a face of cuteness could ever be evil.  WRONG. 

For one, Charlie is a toy mauler.  Every day I return home to another mound of stuffing with deflated cloth animal carcasses thrown  around the apartment.  A few years ago, Charlie must have grown tired of prey that didn’t fight back and moved on to baby possums, skunks and other vermin of various shapes and sizes.  It was a traumatic time for me and for the wildlife population at large. 

I began to look at Charlie like Cujo, waiting for him to reel me in with his cuteness and then clamp down on my throat.  So, you can see my reluctance to take him to the dog park.  A sunny place where other dogs come to unwind, sniff butts and drink out of the communal doggy bowl.

I didn’t think it was hopeless.  I thought if Charlie went without my other dog Jack, aka his accomplice, there was a glimmer of hope.  When Jack and Charlie are together they are bullies and gang up on other dogs, cats….pretty much anything they think would gush fluffy polypropylene stuffing when ripped apart. 

So, I distracted Jack with 5 biscuits and while he devoured them and was none the wiser (Jack’s eyes tend to roll into the back of his head when he is eating, much like a Great White Shark’s do, rendering him completely blind) Charlie and I snuck out to the park.

The first five minutes were a blur, mostly because I kept my eyes tightly shut for them.  I figured as soon as I heard yelling and screams I would open them in time to rescue Charlie’s prey.  Shockingly the screams never came.  Once I unclicked the leash from Charlie’s collar he was off like a bullet tearing around the park, stopping briefly to take a quick whiff of the strange doggy butt’s he passed by.  We were there for almost an hour filled with wrestling, chasing, sniffing, drinking, rolling, pouncing sans barking, biting growling or fighting.

Needless to say it was a successful trip to the dog park with one minor exception, Charlie is now limping like someone shot him.   I should have known he would go crazy with no confines of an apartment and with room to run like a banshee.  Charlie had no warm up stretching and clearly pulled a hammy…really really bad.

So, tomorrow we will be going on a new adventure.  To the vet.