Childhood Pets

            My dogs come as a matched set – both black lab mixes, and utterly inseparable. Midnight is a little smaller, a little slimmer, with a pointed, fox-like face and a curly tail that serves as an excellent indication of her mood and energy. If it’s curled up over her back, she’s happy and energetic. The more it loses its curl, the less energy she has. Charlie is a little bit bigger, with the strong-jawed face of a true retriever, even though it’s obvious that he’s not a full lab. He’s built solidly, and if he weren’t such an absolute sweetheart he’d be a little scary.

            Midnight’s the more high-strung of the two – she’s very clearly the Alpha of their little pack of two, and she really hates it when any other dog tries to muscle in on her turf. It makes for some interesting times when we try to dog-sit. Charlie is so easy going that it’s almost not funny – I have yet to see anything actually upset him. When we were younger and had just gotten the dogs, my little brother (who must have been 7 or 8) decided that it would be a good idea to try and play tackle football with the dogs. Needless to say, Midnight did not appreciate this effort and made her displeasure clear by fleeing the scene. Charlie just laid there patiently on the floor, waiting for Daniel to get bored and leave. When my friends come over to hang out, the dogs usually come up to my room and visit, and someone usually ends up using Charlie as a pillow. He doesn’t seem to mind.

            We’re pretty sure that the two of them are related somehow, probably on their father’s side. When we took them to the vet for the first time after we got them, she said that Midnight was probably about three months older than Charlie, so they can’t have the same mother – but they look similar enough to have the same father. Both of them are black lab mixes with a single white star on their chests.

            Their exact origins are unknown – they turned up under my best friend’s father’s car the morning before her 11^th birthday party. I saw them and fell in love with them at first sight, and it didn’t take nearly as long as I’d expected to convince my parents that adopting two half-grown puppies was a good idea. They made our old dog’s life miserable (even though they were fairly laid back for puppies, he had been head honcho for 12 years, and he was too old for puppies), but my siblings and I loved them. It was nice to have dogs that actually liked children around.