Charlie Update

[reisen55]

Always for Nessie, our little champion was groomed yesterday, quite the Man about town, or a chair, now.

[Nessie]

I love the Charlie Updates. He looks very nice now. I could just...

(pet pet pet pet ,cuddle, rub belly, scratch behind fuzzy ears)

HUG that little sweetheart!

He's so lucky to have found you and he looks happy in every picture you post.

Nessie

[reisen55]

Remember Nessie that I found him, and had a merry chase around our block before I could corner the little devil and get him into my car. I have not posted a picture of Lambchop, a small toy poodle that showed up on our doorstep in Monroe NY in 1990. He had been living in our bushes for a time, was abandoned, abused so we took him in. Cataract in one eye, lived for 5 years until Cancer came. He truly "found us" and was a delightful, albeit strange, companion. Had his rules too, which we had to learn.

Our miniature schnauzer, Winston, passed November 6, 2010 and is remembered on the petloss board. So right now we have Penny - schnoodle and dear Charlie. Not bad.

If you follow the Rainbow Bridge, I also have a 16.1 appaloosa there, Apache Tears. Delightful horse. Two great danes from when I was younger. God knows how many guinea pigs and gerbels. Four or five dachshunds. Probably two turtles. No partridge in a pear tree. LOL.

But Lambchop was also a special little man as well. Glad Charlie brings a smile.

[reisen55]

This is Lambchop. 1990 to June 2, 1995

[Nessie]

Awww...

Rest in peace, Lambchop.

I subscribe to no particular belief system and I've got no idea if there's an afterlife. All I can say, though, is all that twaddle about only humans having souls can't possibly be true.

Look at that face. That face has as much heart, soul, and emotion as yours or mine.

If you get to Heaven and there's no Lambchop running up to you to greet you the second you arrive...

Then it doesn't deserve the name "Heaven" at all.

Nessie

[reisen55]

Lambchop had his rules, we had to learn then. Being abused in whatever former life he had, he would bite strangers, which is a bad thing for dog ownership. But we learned he had to TRUST you and that was very very easy to do. When someone came in, we held him ... Lamb would sniff them to get the scent and then the stranger would give Lamber a treat, and all was OK with the world.

Why? On our property, he was George S. Patton's Third Army defending the perimeter. We took him to a Bark Park in Suffern and fearing the worst? Nope, he had a ball!! Running around, happy, not biting. Why? He did not need to defend this area, it was not on his list.

So when we learned these simple rules everything was fine.

Nessie: on the afterlife, you should know better. It's DOWN THERE, UNDER THE SURFACE. LOL.

[Duncan Edwards]

Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

Mark Twain

I think God will have prepared everything for our perfect happiness. If it takes my dog being there [in Heaven], I believe he'll be there.

Billy Graham

God made everything but the dog. He already had one.

[Nessie]

Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

Mark Twain

Mr. Twain was a very smart man.

Nessie

[Nessie]

So when we learned these simple rules everything was fine.

Every dog is different. My cocker-terrier mix was terrified of thunderstorms but the little weenie-beanie couldn't have cared less. My cocker-terrier mix loved little kids but the little weenie-beanie favored old ladies (just like her first mommy).

Nessie: on the afterlife, you should know better. It's DOWN THERE, UNDER THE SURFACE. LOL.

You got a point there. And come to think of it, why exactly is Heaven up and Hell down? The inside of the Earth shouldn't be automatically bad. It's made of dirt, and so is mud. Mud is good.

And what's up in the sky anyway? Nothing. Space. Not even any air. And it's cold up there!

What's so great about being up there?

Maybe Hell's up there and Heaven's underground.

It isn't Heaven at all, though, if there is no mud. It's got to be good mud too. I know what kind of mud it's got...it's all clay. It's just like that light reddish-brown clay I had in 2005...I have no pictures of that claypit or anything, it just lives on in my memory...a cool soft gelid claypit under an endless sun beaming from a cloudless sapphire sky.

And the memory of it becomes more and more perfect with every passing year until I know for a fact that all the clay up in Heaven is exactly like that and it's bottomless too.

Nessie