The Stroke Dog

No, it's not a bad Billy Squier song - but it certainly has been mocked over the years. I prefer the Barry Manilow version though "Her name was Charlie - She was a stroke Dog..." Think Copacabana, then you'll get the joke. (Such as it were)

Charlie is Randy & Drew's dog. Randy adopted her about 10 years ago or so. Back then, he got it into his head that he wanted a dog, to accessorize along with Tuesday the Kidney cat (more on this in a second), so he went out and did something amazing... went to the SPCA and adopted not a cute puppy, but Charlie, who had been running wild for a couple of years and was fully grown with all of her bad habits in tow. No one really knows how old Charlie is. I remember Randy telling me that the vet checked her out, and judging by her teeth, she was 2-3 years old at that time. Charlie had been mistreated, and had been out running loose, doing her own thing before being snared by the animal police, so Randy promptly adopted her.

Speaking of Tuesday the Kidney Cat ... Just to preface; there are nice cats who love everyone, and want their ears scratched by strangers, and there was Tuesday. Tuesday fell into the aptly named Tuesday category. She loved Randy, but barely tolerated anyone else in the near vicinity. When we'd come over (which was frequently over the years), Tuesday would sit 2/3rds up the stairs, and glare at everyone with open hostility - ready to make a run for the the upstairs bedroom if someone got within a 10 foot radius. But Randy had had Tuesday for 14 years, and when time began to run its course, Tuesday's kidneys started to go on her, and he was on a business trip in another province, and upon hearing the news, canceled his meetings and flew home to be with his rather cranky Kidney cat. Rather than put her down, Randy refused to take no for an answer, and for the next couple of years, he & Drew would once a week insert a needle into Tuesday and do some in-house-kitty-dialysis with some fairly large expense attached. (Just so you know, Tuesday's legendary crankiness was offset by Randy, who would often call me with Tuesday in his arms, and say "Hey - do you want to hear my cat?" He'd then squeeze the cat with the telephone receiver close by so I could hear the bitchy, strangled "...MmmmRRRWWwerrooww", then he'd giggle and hang up). It was comedy gold, Baby's.

Back to Randy. In the summer of 2002, Randy had a pretty dreadful year. There was the cat/kidney thing, and while this was going on, Randy's Dad (who he was very close to, and who was a really, really wonderful man) was suffering in the final stages of a pretty bad case of terminal cancer and kidney failure. On top of this? Charlie the dog had a stroke. I kid you not. The dog had a fucking stroke. Now, my memory about actual time frame is hazy around this particular time as I was dealing with my own Dad's terminal diagnosis, but Randy had been dating Drew for about a year or so before all this happened, and Drew was a tower of strength throughout this whole terrible affair. Shortly after Randy's Dad passed in the late summer, I was in the process of moving MY dad in with me as he was stricken with cancer as well. Randy & Drew came out and helped me move all of Dad's stuff from the basement suite he was living, and into the new two bedroom place I had rented. The three of us moved all of his possessions from one place to another, small talking, and trying to avoid the topic of of Norm (Randy's Dad) and Charlie (the Stroke Dog) and Tuesday (The Kidney Cat), and Davey (My Dad). It was pretty painful, and very surreal, Randy and Drew moving my own terminally ill father in with me, weeks after Randy had lost his own Dad.

So back to Chuckles the Stroke-Dog. It was really sad. But, if Randy would do expensive home kitty-dialysis, some pesky little thing like a massive canine brain hemorrhage wouldn't deter him either. So Randy put Charlie through intensive hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, acupuncture, the gathering of strange & magical herbs, and had a laying on of hands healing ceremony, and eventually Chuckles came around and began the long road back to recovery. The funny thing is that I don't think that dogs are entirely self-aware. Charlie was trying to walk and was constantly staggering around like a drunk enjoying the bender of the century. She always loved playing and such, but seeing as how she couldn't get up or anything, she'd just sit on her blanky looking at everyone, doing the doggy smile / goofy shit eating canine grin (no pun intended) with her tongue hanging out of her mouth, while trying to figure out why we weren't throwing her favorite ball for her to fetch.

Forward to all these years later, I babysat Chuckles for a few days while Randy, Drew and Jackie-Boy were out of town. We hung out, bonded, and threw our thing down. All the damage from the stroke has largely been mitigated. She only wears a rubber doggie-booty on her right front paw as she can't straighten it out while walking. (Click on the above picture to see the booty). So she kind of drags her right knuckles on the pavement, and the booty is there to protect the top of her foot against the eventual road-rash. She is a chick magnet for sure, and I was getting stopped by everyone on the street inquiring as to why the booty and the limp. She's a good girl and an unintentional attention-whore.

She's also mellowed in her later years. In her younger days, she was always nippy around children and smaller dogs, but that's largely stopped now. She was also vastly territorial, but now she more than tolerates Young Jack, and really doesn't care much if other dogs are coming down the sidewalk other than a perfunctory sniff of their ass, then she sort of shrugs and says "Whatever - I'm behind peeing on all this new territory, so I've got to keep rambling". I had her in my office for a couple of days, and there are 5 of us there, and she very quickly got used to all of us, and any of us could come and go through the front door, and Charlie couldn't even be bothered to wake up and see why the front door was opening and closing. But, when the mailman or the courier guy walked in? She would go bananas; barking, and generally making a big deal about things. I thought that was pretty cool how she knew this was where I worked and she very quickly got the sense of how things worked. It was only when a stranger (other than the other 4 strangers who were working there) walked in, she got all territorial protecting the rest of us, as she considered my office her turf.

Back when Randy & Drew were dating and things were taking a turn for the serious, I remember Randy telling me that was that in the immediate aftermath of the stroke, Drew would pick up this 40 pound dog, and carry her outside late at night in the pouring rain, don a rubber glove and manually stimulate the dogs rectum to force a poop, as Charlie couldn't do it on her own at that time. Randy said that he knew right then that Drew was the one for him.

All these years later, they are married, happy, have a kid, and are plugging right along with Chuckles The-Wonder-Stroke-Dog.