Later that day, as my younger brother and I were buying supplies for our new family member, we named her Charlotte. My family was big into basketball and this was a tribute to the old Charlotte Hornets NBA team. Boy, was this exciting! We had a puppy, and for the first week, Charlotte and I both regretted our decisions. To Charlotte, I was that awful woman who kept putting her in that dreadful crate at night. To me, Charlotte was the reason I was losing sleep. But I was determined that crate training would work, and eventually thing got better. She was such an active and happy dog. So eager to please, but with a mischievous streak. I remember one day coming home from work...I opened the front door and found four hours of Charlotte's work. See, we had decided to give her a little bit of freedom, and because of our mistake, Charlotte had a grand time. When I opened the front door, the first thing I saw was my prom shoes...both laying in a chewed up heap not far from the door. Next, I found a pair of my gym socks (where she found them, I couldn't tell you) lying down the hall and starting a path to my bedroom. A couple of stuffed animals later, I found my puppy underneath my bed, and I swear to you she smiled at me. Eventually, I got her trained, and the worst thing we would come home to was her lying on your pillow. The one thing we had a hard time of doing was keeping her from jumping. We knew it wasn't good for her back, but it seemed like the harder we tried, the more she would jump (the breed is a stubborn one as some of you know, I'm sure). We kept her weight down, except for one time for a bit when she was fed french fries everyday at lunch. I'm sure my brother knows nothing about it, right Clay??

Despite our best efforts, Charlotte began to have back troubles. She'd go through these spells, and we'd be on rounds of an anti-inflammatory which worked wonders. And as she grew older, she was increasingly becoming my mom's dog. I lived at home through college, so I saw her everyday and helped with her care, but she attached herself to my mom nonetheless. Still, I knew all major decisions for Charlotte were left on my shoulders.