I never liked dogs until I met The Apostle Charlie. Charlie came unto us four years ago, a six pound miniature poodle who'd escaped the mean streets of Santa Cruz for the comforts of my mother-in-law's home. He had black fur and an overbite that made him look like he was perpetually grinning about something, possibly the luxurious new dwelling that he now got to call home. When you meet Charlie, he looks like something created by Jim Henson, more endearing Muppet than canine, almost teddy-bear in form. He is cheerful, inquisitive, energetic, and mostly gentle, although strangely vigilant against aircraft. One can almost envision Charlie perched along the white cliffs of Dover, gazing out across the English Channel, barking to a squadron of Spitfire pilots with warning of the impending arrival of the Luftwaffe. A most enthusiastic pedestrian, Charlemagne fancies himself a canine sleuth, abruptly plunging into bushes and hedges to investigate some new clue that has come wafting into his highly attentive nostrils. For a nine-year old dog, he is downright Spiderman-like in his ability to scale walls and rock piles with a single vertical leap. I worry almost incessantly about his health (which is robust), and his safety from break-ins of one kind or another. I readily concede that my devotion to this little dog would fairly qualify as neurosis, and I do not apologize at all for my fealty. People who have known me for decades are perplexed by my affection for, and allegiance to, this mute, ten pound creature. They were under the distinct impression that I didn't like humans, much less dogs. Hence, his title, The Apostle Charlie. His presence has truly occasioned a conversion experience within me that I can scarcely analyze, much less articulate. It might have something to do with my season with cancer and realizing that the cruelest tragedy reaches out to engulf us when we least expect it, particularly consuming the most vulnerable and dear to us, and that we must take the steps necessary, however inadequate and feeble, to protect those we most cherish, those who cannot defend themselves. G.K. Chesterton wrote that, "the way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost." Charlie has made me attentive to the great truth of those words. He is truly the dog who made a difference.
