Kjærlighet

Kjærlighet is Norwegian.

Maybe those three words up there explain everything.

Or maybe they explain nothing at all …


Norway is a rabies free country, thus have very strict import rules when bringing Spot the family dog to live there. Once they survive the trip in the airplane – nestled snugly with the luggage, they are put into quarantine for six months. I believe that number might have been changed to three months right before we moved there …. but still – NO. Just – no.

So my sister adopted our Boxer, Aggie, and we became a ‘dog free’ family. We looked for boxers, sort of, once we moved there. Knowing my sister – we knew she would fall in love with Aggie and refuse to give her back – thus we were a ‘permanent’ dog-free family – we realized this going into the situation. The only question was how long it would actually take her. Six months? A month? Her partner Patti said that TWO DAYS later she was sobbing that she would never be able to give her back to us!

About six months into our ‘Norwegian Adventure’, Gary – being the Young Men’s President – had been on a camping trip with all the boys and happened to be hanging out in the church parking lot waiting for parent’s to come pick up their boy when one of them wandered past holding a puppy. He discovered that it was ‘pick’ of the litter? I don’t know if there is a term for the puppy you save for the owner of the male dog you bred your female dog with. I do know it is customary to do this. Our friend had a female dog – ½ Gordon Setter and ½ Medium Schnauzer. They bred her with a full bred Schnauzer.

After the puppies came along – they pulled out the cutest, sweetest, smartest little puppy for the daddy’s owner.


He didn’t want her.


The decided they didn’t have room for another dog.


Gary pulled out his cell phone and snapped a photo of her:

He inquired about the price and a few other things and headed on home. He showed me the photo when he got back and, well … I sort of fell in love …

I don’t remember in what context Gary and I were talking about purchasing Kjærlighet and making her our own, but we were discussing the photo Gary had me look at. I told him: “You had me at the puppy paws!” TOTALLY in love with the little black bear puppy paws! Not to mention that adorable face and big ole’ floppy ears!

Got her home and she was a little nervous – so I took her down to Lori’s room to sleep – thus not waking Gary up every hour or so. There was a set of French Doors heading into that room – so I could keep her contained. I fell asleep at some point and dreamed that we had named her ‘Charlie’. When I opened my eyes, the sweetest little puppy was sitting on the floor right in front of my face – just staring at me. I smiled and said “Hello, Charlie!”


And, I swear,




she smiled back!

I felt she needed a Norwegian name – so I thought about it all that day. I had already introduced “Charlie” to the family and they approved. They asked why? And I said it is just her name – I didn’t really choose it – it is just her name. At some point during the day the word Kjærlighet came to mind and I realized that THIS was her real name! It is pronounced shar-lee-het – thus ‘Charlie’ was a perfect nickname. Kjærlighet is one of the words for ‘Love’ – perfect!

*** Nature vs Nurture ***

A question and a stroll down doggy-memory-lane for me.

We had been the proud owners of three boxers before we got Charlie. The first: Chance, was my brother Jeffs dog, but he was leaving for Afghanistan or somewhere and Jeffs wife thought Chance would be happy at another home … We were looking for a dog – I had mentioned it to Mom one day on the phone. Mom played matchmaker, and the rest was history …

He was the BEST dog! To this day, we cannot discuss Chance without adding the sentence “Chance was a good dog” – it just always comes out – always there. He got me through many major disasters as he was our dog during the year 1997.

We decided that maybe he was lonely and like idiots got a female boxer: “Logan” to come live with him. Discovered very quickly that Chance – while being ‘a good dog’ seemed to have issues with sharing and such which left Logan rather desperate for entertainment (will discuss in a sec) and one day I threw my arms in the air and called it quits. Called Marci and asked her if she wanted a boxer? She said yes, so we got out a map and marked a dinky town in Oklahoma halfway between her Colorado home and our Texas hone and the very next day Logan moved to Colorado!

After we had to put Chance down, we started looking and found the cutest little boxer puppy! And Agatha Wishbone “Aggie” (and she had a wishbone shaped white mark on her snout) came to live with us.

Here’s the question:

Can you ‘raise’ a dog to be … well …


weird?

Either we have been exceptionally … lucky(?) or you can shape and mold a dogs personality.

As this ever-so-long-and-getting-longer-post was being hatched in my brain – I was wondering about that very thing. I asked Gary to name the weirdest thing that each of our dogs did. There were a ton of things to choose from, but the top one or two are the same.



Chance:

1) Chance LOVED to catch wasps in his mouth. They would buzz around a bit in there and get good and angry, then Chance would come over to you and spit it out on your lap. The wasps (oddly enough) were PISSED and stung the first thing it could find. We got really good at scattering whenever there was that odd buzzing noise coming from the general vicinity of Chance’s mouth.

2) Chance loved to suck on frogs. When he was done with them, they also go spit out in your lap. Generally this did not cause a widespread panic from the humans – but the frogs looked pretty pissed also. I am not sure why he did this – but he seemed to be SUPER hyper afterwards and frothed from the mouth. I have a sneaking suspicion that the dude was GETTING HIGH on frog … something.


Logan:

Due to the fact that Chance was incredibly stingy and twice her size – Logan’s toys were always taken from her by Chance and stored in places unknown around the house – or he just played with what ever she wanted himself. This led to some boredom and ‘creative’ play by Logan:

1) She ate a hole in our wall. Yes …

A hole …

In our wall.

And the really weird thing? It was not at a corner – just on a flat piece of sheetrock – leaving a hole about as big as her head. How does one start a hole on a flat surface with just a boxer face? Seriously? Now TELL ME you have a weirder pet …

2) She ate a couch. I don’t believe that much of it actually passed through her – but take a full size couch, pull out all the stuffing and shred the cloth – of the couch and all three cushions and you have a HUGE incentive to call your sister and ask her if she wants a dog …. (forgot to mention the ‘couch eating’ habit …)

And just for fun – when Logan slept on our bed and it was time for her to get off – when she was sleeping so sound that we couldn’t wake her – you could shove her off a 2’ – 3’ bed (on the high side – I am no good in estimating) and she would just slither off, fall with a big ‘ploink’ and never wake up.



Aggie:

Aggie was quite weird … really. But as Gary and I discussed it – we came up with the same weird thing – and only the one. When Aggie got on the bed in the evening – she was ON THE BED FOR THE EVENING. She loved to burrow under the covers – down at the foot of the bed – totally trapped. You would see a doggy head moving around every now and then – but pretty much asleep – or, as I kind of believed – in an oxygen deprived stupor …

Maybe she didn’t have any more weird items to check off the list is because she lost 100,000 brain cells every evening due to a lack of oxygen.

Charlie:

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie (shaking my head back and forth and clucking my tongue). I have to say that she is the smartest dog we have ever had. OK – Chance was smart. He was also quiet and dignified. You can hide a LOT of 'stupid' behind quiet and dignified ….

We would be here all night if I were to start listing the weirdness that is in that dog … if I only stuck to REALLY weird – it would still be rather lengthy.

I was thinking about a few of the ‘fun’ times we had with Charlie – in those first, important, impressionable months.

She would want to get up on the bed with me while I was reading. So, she would back up and make a run for it. I would see a little black blur caroming toward the bed, feel a thud against the side, hear a grunt and see two little black paws hanging on for dear life as they slowly …


slowly …



slowly …



slid out of sight. Then a soft little ‘plonk’ as she hit the ground! EVAH’ SO MUCH FUN to watch! Every day more and more of her would be visible! And EVERY DAY I just watched and gave her encouragement and constructive criticism. I guess I could have helped her out … but where is the fun in that?

Then, one day, we discovered the most hilarious combination: Take one very energetic puppy, a yellow tennis ball and the yellow room and you have the potential for hours of hilarity and laughter! OK – Yellow Room? Yeah – the beautiful mountain home that we were living in was over 100 years old and started out its life as a lodge / hotel. On the main floor there were three what you would call living rooms – each complete with a fireplace. One had built in shelves – thus COULD have been called the ‘Library’ but that sounded too snooty – so as the movers were bringing in furniture – we told them to put it in the Yellow Room, or the Gray Room or the Red Room – yes – incredibly creative, but it worked and it stuck.

The Yellow Room is between the Red and Gray rooms and it and the Red Room, instead of having unfinished pine floors, theirs were ‘finished’ – stained and shiny and SLICK! As a side note – only second to the smell of a spud cellar – the smell of that beautiful mountain home after mopping the raw pine floors with grønnsåpe (green soap) is my favorite smell!

Take said ball and with Charlie standing in the doorway between the Gray Room and the Yellow Room and toss it into the Red Room! Watching a hyper puppy run and run and run and NEVER get anywhere is seriously more fun that words can describe! Watching the hyper (and a wee bit clumsy) puppy actually get some traction just to find out she is smashing face first into the open French doors i s equally fun! I’m not a MONSTER – it is not like I had the French doors closed off to her – she was just a bit directionally challenged as a tot.

Ryan’s theory on Charlie is that all of the above mentioned ‘Quality Time’ that Charlie and I shared every day while the kids were at school caused irreparable damage and that I am the sole cause of her ‘weirdness’. I am not really sure – but I am pretty sure that if it is me – I must be perfecting my technique since she kicks butt in the weirdness category.

I know – this became totally out of control – sorry. All the crap I wrote up there is a small introduction to “Charlie – the Weirdest Dog on the Planet”. I might have caused SOME of her weirdness – but not nearly HALF as much as what damage has been caused by her thinking that she is a human being ….


Seriously …


A HUMAN


She will just stare you down if you want to get into an argument about whether she is a human or not. It is a not a discussion she will engage in – she knows who she is and NO ONE is going to change her mind.

Now – take the fact that Charlie thinks she is human, add in the fact that a Frisbee being thrown in an area where she can run and jump and catch it is EXACTLY like crack to her, and throw in the only decent Frisbee tosser arriving home from work and you get chaos, bedlam, pandemonium and an all round out of control freak show of a dog.

I should also mention that Gary is a HUGE softie when it comes to Charlie and her getting anything and everything she wants from the man. She has had a Frisbee thrown to her in our front yard after Gary gets home from work EVERY day that it is possible. If it is raining or wet she does not get to play – but other than that – things have gone along those lines for all the years we have lived here.

Here’s the thing …

Somehow, somewhere in the past, a fun time for Gary and Charlie to bond and Charlie to get a wee bit of exercise became some twisted, weird NEED in Charlie and she moves beyond desperate to a little bit psychotic about it. She, also, has developed a sense of entitlement about the entire thing. Gary has mentioned more than once that he is just an ‘arm’ to Charlie. He is her own personal Frisbee tossing slave and if he hesitates to throw – the lady gets …

… grumpy.

Remember that Charlie-thinks-she-is-a-human thing? Yeah, that? Well, if things don’t go according to plan on the nightly Frisbee toss – Charlie will give you a ‘piece of her mind’.


How does she do this?


She TALKS …


of course.


I mean, duh – how else do y’all think we communicate?


A few weeks ago Charlie became exceptionally disturbed by Gary’s total and complete lack of skills in the ‘slave’ department and literally RANTED. We both burst out laughing and ever since I have tried to capture Charlie ‘talking’ with my camera.

Oddly, (seriously) Charlie is camera shy. If I ever start taking photos of her – she moves away. We are not talking about a flash or anything – just does not like it. That being said – I was pretty sure I was not going to be able to get a flat out ‘sentence’ from her – but thought I might capture something.

Today was the best I could do and I don’t know how the volume will be on your computer (and I don’t think it will play on the ‘i’ family) but it is seriously fun to listen to Charlie using her ‘angry voice’ and bawling out Gary (I repeat the last time she grumples a few times so that you can hear it):

Yeah – and that last part? She used to ‘speak’ a lot more than she does now …

I think that she got tired of us not answering her back, but we always said she sounded like Muttley. To get that little ditty of a clip – we had to actually type in the words “Muttley swearing” and then that would show up. Not Muttley laughing. Not Muttley talking. Not Muttley yelling.


It is Muttley swearing. So pretty much You Tube and I agree about what is coming out of Charlie’s mouth …