photo taken October 2009

one year ago: Hi! Or High?
two years ago: My Five Dollar Stetson

Rarely, rarely does Charlie put his hackles up.  I don’t think I’ve seen him hackle up over food or treats, ever.  He did NOT want to lose this elk leg.

Little Charlie is not so little anymore. He has yet to double in size before he’s fully grown, but he is a BIG puppy! He almost reaches edge
to edge when he stretches out across the width of the bed; when I carry him, he fills up my entire torso area – hard to believe that just four months ago he fit in one hand. He used to shock the cat by walking under Eli’s belly and now the tables are turned – if Charlie is standing in the cat’s path, Eli walks right under Charlie and wraps his tail around Charlie’s body the way that cats do.

Two days ago, Charlie said his first word – his first howl! He howled three times in a row – each one was really only a one-syllable howl, and he looked so astonished at himself and he hasn’t done it again. It was darling.

Charlie made his first kill last week! Eli had spent the night inside with us, and around 4am, I felt him jump up onto the bed where Charlie and I were asleep. I instantly knew something was not OK, flicked on the light, and saw that Eli had a live mouse ON THE BED, to play with for a while before he ate it up.

I screamed at Eli to take the mouse off the bed, but he doesn’t obey as well as Charlie does. The mouse was running circles on the bedspread on my chest, I was freaking out – I become a complete cliche when it comes to mice – and Charlie was standing on the bed grinning and wagging his tail, thrilled about all the excitement.

I snapped the covers back and sent the cat and mouse flying, and Charlie leapt off the bed after them. He and Eli ran to a corner where I suspect the mouse had hid in a crack, and moments later, Charlie emerged with the mouse in his mouth. He dropped the mouse onto the floor and, unlike the little feline, had killed it instantly. But Charlie acted like he wanted to hide the dead mouse somewhere in the cabin so I managed to get the mouse away from him with a deer antler, sent Charlie and the cat outside, and flung the dead mouse out the door after them.