Time for another crazy story about my interactions with the Animal Kingdom.  This story is about when a dog’s soul passed over me.  Seriously.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I rented a room from a friendly couple that I found on Craig’s List.  However, they had a little dog named Chuck (yes, “Chuckles” is based on Chuck in name and appearance).  Chuck hated everyone except for his owner, Caryn, who saw Chuck as one of her children.  She decked Chuck out with this neck-bling so that he sounded like a prancing box of chains, and he never stopped moving. Even when he was still he twitched with rage.  He would run circles around the kitchen table and bark for no reason except the voices in his insane little head. He rarely was not at least growling at something.

He hated me.  He never warmed up to me.  I want to be careful how I word this, because I know that Caryn will probably read this, but I was not real fond of the dog either.  I was fond of Caryn though, and I was presented with a dilemma… I couldn’t stand Chuck, but I knew he was precious to Caryn, and I knew that if anything ever happened to Chuck I would have a very hard time not showing the relief and the joy it would bring me to no longer have to deal with that rabid little creature every day.

So after a good year or so living as room mates with Chuck, our relationship never changing from day one, I end up having a dream one night.  In the dream, I walk into the house and Chuck comes running up to me wagging his tail with uncontainable glee.  He jumps into my arms, licks my face frantically and almost whines with love.  Similar to those videos you see on YouTube where a soldier returns from military service and his dog is over joyed to see him.  It was as if Chuck really loved me and had been holding it in, and he finally couldn’t hold it in any longer.  I was shocked.

Then I woke up.  Of course it was a dream.  I walked out of my room, on my way to use the bathroom, and Caryn is standing out there crying.  She explains that she took Chuck in to the vet for a routine check up.  It turned out he’d had a severe medical problem that was causing him intense pain and it was so far along that the only real humane option was to put him down right then and there.  Up to that point we all thought he was healthy, we had no clue he was going to be gone so soon.

Chuck died while I was dreaming about him.

I am a believing Christian, so that puts me in the kooky club off the bat for some people, but if you know me, you know I am a skeptical person and a researcher.  For my beliefs I walk uphill, I read, I reason, I wrestle.  I never in a million years would make something like this up.  To me, it would sound like total crazy talk… and it does even as I say it now.  All I can say is that it happened, and it gave me a better response than a fist pump when Caryn told me the news.  I told her about the dream.  It was uncanny.  I had one sweet memory with that dog, and I still wonder to this day if he was stopping by to straighten things out on his way to dog heaven.  To let me know that somewhere behind is devil-rat disposition he loved me.  I really don’t know, but it was one of the more fascinating and mystifying things that has ever happened to me.

So, I dedicate this page to the memory of Chuck.  Rest in peace ya little devil rat!

 

Ethan

Support this content on Patreon
Become a patron at Patreon!