An Unexpected Guest in the Night

Do you recognise that nose?  Yup! You’ve guessed it. It’s Charlie. He came to stay with us rather unexpectedly. And this is how the story goes  …

One night last week, we went to bed the usual way – waiting and waiting for Mummy to get into bed.Finally we’re all in and snoozed away.  At 4.30am the phone rang.  Nothing like a phone ringing in the middle of the night to wake up Mummy! We were all startled. The person on the other end asked if Mummy had lost a dog.  For one second she wondered if she might have locked out George and he had gone wandering the streets like his old days.  She looked over to make sure we were both in bed. And then she remembered that there’s another dog that was wearing one of our tags – Charlie.

“What colour is the dog?” asked Mummy. “Brown-ish.”

“Where are you?” inquired Mummy. “Fulham Palace Road. And where are you?”

“Chelsea.”

“Oh my god! That’s far!”

“He’s not my dog,” Mummy replied.

“Why does he have your number on the tag?”

“We know him. We dog sit him. Long story. I’ll come and get him,” offered Mummy, “No, actually let me call his owner. I’ll call you right back.”

Well, that did not go as planned. Instead, the police brought a confused Charlie to us at 6.30am.  Me, George and Charlie –
all a little confused as to what was going on.  I looked on as Charlie sat uncertainly on Mummy’s lap. The sun was just coming up and we were all still a little sleepy from the eventful night. Plus, of all days, we had a busy schedule ahead of us which was about to begin at 8.30am. Mummy called me to her and the four of us huddled together on the day bed in the study for a little rest. Mummy made arrangements for our dog walker to take Charlie as we couldn’t take him with us.  After doing what we had to do, we finally went to get Charlie and gave him lots of hugs. The rest of the day, we travelled in packs every time Mummy moved from one room to the next. Finally the day came to an end. We were all tired. And Charlie settled into his prime position –  On top of Mummy. And George snuggled up on the other side. I slept on the other pillow, letting Charlie have the cuddles.  It’s alright. He had a confusing day and he can have all the hugs he wants.

The next morning, Charlie was snuggled right up to Mummy –
And she was loving it.

The minute Charlie moved away, George moved in!

And I just looked on – reminding myself how my world had changed … Mummy saw me looking at her and asked me to come up for a snuggle.  We stayed like this for a while – taking in the moment for all is well.  That Charlie is safe.  Someone was looking after him. So many things could have gone wrong – he could have been run over, he could have been taken, he could have ended up with the Dog Warden and never reconnected.

I know Mummy loves Charlie and we are always happy to have him stay, but it needn’t be such drama!   Charlie, we love you and you can come any time.

May’s comment: Well, nothing like a little drama in the middle of the night.  I won’t go into the details of the series of events but it was a night to remember (or not – LOL!)Everything was so surreal! Charlie was found wandering the streets in the middle of the night. Thankful that he did not get run over, that he wasn’t taken and that someone found him – and that my number was on the tag.  Otherwise who knows where he would have ended up because his owner’s phone was not contactable. And even though he was chipped, his records were not updated either!
Charlie was very happy to be reunited with his daddy. And they are both ok.  No one was harmed. Just thankful.  Next time we’ll have Charlie the normal way.

I always take the collars off my dogs when we’re at home. This made me re-think. If he didn’t have his collar, they would never have made the connection because his microchip info is outdated – that’s another thing to remember.