The calm is our house is once again punctured by Seema’s shrieks of “No Charlieeeee” as heavy thuds of her chasing Charlie around the house reverberates throughout our abode. She's chasing him for about to pee in the house or he's biting on a shoe or he has a piece of the kid's books or homework. It’s been almost 10-15 years since maybe Sidharth was 5 or 6 that such scenes have unfolded at our house. It’s been exactly 1 week since Charlie waked into our home, and our lives have been turned upside down on its head. And how!!!

I’ve been banished from my bedroom to sleep, if I get any, on the couch to keep him company through the night. Seema takes over the early morning walks, and the kids have their turns whenever they get breaks from their virtual online learning. We are forever walking around the house, in a state of high alert,  with Clorox wipes, paper towels, and mops to clean up after any puddles of pee or piles of poo that he may have ejected as per his whim. One of the curtains has been ripped out, and an expensive rug has been pooped on and mauled, the rest of the rugs have had copious dosed of urinification and have been tattered around the edges, the coffee table is getting chomped on at the ends, Sidharth’s homework has been shredded and chomped on (now I realize “The dog ate my homework” excuse is a real thing), our biological clocks have been upended by the incorrigible Mr. Charlie. But it has been great fun. We have been reliving the age when the kids were growing up as this little fella accords all the experiences we had when Sid and Alaya were growing up and the flood of memories of their mischief, tantrums, and actions come flooding back to me.

Alaya has taken on the mantle of the discipliner and Sid has been playing the diminutive lackey to the canine family member. It doesn’t seem to be working with Charlie though. He seems to have a mind of his own and does precisely whatever he sets his mind to. He seems to have lost weight since we got him home last week. Maybe that’s due to his increased level of activity at our home, is how we’d like to think about it. He had his first visit to the vet this week and everything checked out OK. He seemed to be the star at the doctor’s place and the nurse told us that he kept getting passed around for everyone to pet him. Seema has been trying to convert him from a heart of America MAGA hamburger loving meat-eating puppy to idli dosa curd rice consuming Indian pet, who’ll end up working at NASA!!!

By and large, this has been a fun experience thus far. We’d hardly see the kids since they are holed up in their rooms all day, doing what is anybody’s wild guess, after they finish virtual schools. At least now they get out during breaks to tend to Charlie's needs and occasionally play with him as well. It's someone that the entire family can bond around and can agree to love and spoil unabashedly. Even when Charlie has behaved at his absolute worst and we admonish him for it, he turns his big droopy eyes with the “What did I do now?” expression, and then it’s impossible to stay mad at him anymore. 

Charlie and me: Charlie gets a bath: Day 2

 The first day was a blur with a brand new pup at home and he adjusting to us as much as we were adjusting to him. It seemed like he was a bit anxious on the first day since his appetite was low and he whimpered quite a bit when left alone. We decided to give him a bath since he was so smelly when he came home. He quite enjoyed his bath in the jacuzzi and was then dried off with a warm towel and his golden fleece was dried by a blow-drier. He was shivering for quite a while after his bath.

He pees a lot. Every chance he gets. All our carpets have by now been showered by his golden showers in abundance. Maybe we'll soon be able to train him to use the pee pads when he needs to go. Until then we'll keep plenty of paper towels on hand!!!

Charlie and Me: Charlie comes Home - Day 1

 After continued pressure from Seema and Alaya to bring home a pet, I reached out to many dog breeders in Michigan for varied breeds of canines, well into the COVID season, around Jun-Jul 2020. Most of them didn’t have any puppies for sale, stating that due to COVID the puppies were in high demand and most of the litter had been already booked or sold. In late Sep, this lady from Flint Mi reached out to me to check if I was still interested in a golden retriever puppy, that would be available by end of Nov. Hallelujah. This was a signal from above. She had a litter of 8 puppies, 5 boys, and 3 girls, and many of the puppies were already booked, but there were 2 girl puppies and 2 boy puppies for me to choose from. Dwight, that’s what he was called, was my automatic choice, with his tan complexion and droopy eyes. I didn’t even have the time to check with Seema since I had to make a spot decision before all the puppies were gone. So that’s how Charlie formerly known as Dwight came to be a part of our family. The next part was keeping this a secret from the kids since we wanted to spring this decision on them.

This surprise was revealed to Sidharth when he was using my phone for some of his communications with his friends and the breeder was texting back and forth with me for the choice of our puppy. So, it was only Alaya who was not on this big secret. We told her that we had to visit Sidharth’s college to check out that campus on Nov 14th and she couldn’t be home alone and had to accompany us. Reluctantly and after much grumbling and whining, she chose to join us, though she slept much of the way to Flint. We told her that we were going to meet Sidharth’s head of the computer science department before we go the college. The astonishment on her face was a sight that I will never forget till my dying day when the breeder came out and placed a plump Golden Retriever puppy in her arms. She was speechless, would be an understatement. After finishing the formalities with the breeder, we drove back with a happy girl and a tan chubby puppy in her lap. During the ride back home, we had many good naming suggestions from Munni and Kavi, but Alaya decided that the puppy would be christened Charlie. And it was Charlie who came home, to an immensely happy family, with the aunts watching and blessing via video chat and mom performing the obligatory 'arti' as he entered our home and our hearts.

The first day he was a nervous wreck since he was away from his family and maybe the new surroundings intimidated him. His appetite was reduced, and he wanted to be with us or someone close to him all the time. He’d whimper when left alone or even bark when he was locked up in his crate. I was nominated to sleep next to his crate and attend to his biological needs, every couple of hours at night. Groan. He was up at 3 AM, finished his business on his pee pad, and then was a bundle of energy, ready to play with me. The only problem was I wasn’t and ready to go back to bed. It was around 4:30 AM when I went back to bed, only to be awakened at 6AM, by Charlie barking furiously, wanting to be let out. But he seemed far more settled on Day 2.