Charlie is our Darling

Circé loved having her first doggy houseguest to stay last month. Charlie is a three-year-old retriever who belongs to our friends Viv and John. He’s the strong, silent type (Charlie, that is); when he’s not bouncing about enjoying a game of tug or finding interesting smelly things to roll around in when he’s out for a walk, he likes to sit quietly and watch what’s going on.

Viv and John brought Charlie on his first trip abroad for a few days over Whitsun half-term. But he’s still with us because when they arrived at Calais on their way back to Cardiff the Pet Passport officials told them he couldn’t enter the UK until the end of July. There was no movement on this decision even after a fraught couple of hours on the phone so, given Viv had to be back in front of her French classes after half-term, their options were pretty limited. Either Charlie had to be quarantined or he could come back to continue his holidays with us.

Our rendez-vous on that gloomy Saturday afternoon was by a particularly mucky farm just off the A26 north of Laon, roughly half-way between us and the coast. Circé came with us and was very excited to see Charlie again; Charlie seemed completely unperturbed by the idea of getting out of his car and getting into the back of our Scenic with Circé. Viv and John, of course, were as distraught as Jonathan and I would have been if Circé had been the doggy sans-papiers.

Once they were back in Wales Viv and John were able to confirm with their vet and the UK authorities exactly what the problem was. Charlie had his first rabies jab a couple of years ago before he was micro-chipped. Even though he had been chipped by the time he’d had his blood test to confirm his immunity and has subsequently had a couple of boosters, the fine print of the Pet Passport Scheme is quite clear. The animal must be micro-chipped before being vaccinated against rabies.

I’m not sure I understand, though, why Charlie’s become a Pet Passport refugee. If the object is to prevent canine identity fraud, it’s easy to demonstrate Charlie’s no criminal. He has documentation bearing his microchip number which shows he’s immune to rabies and it’s not hard to check that it really is his microchip. There’s no doubt that protecting the UK against the ravages of rabies is a serious business but I don’t see how detaining an obviously immune dog in France for what seems like an arbitrary period (until the six-month anniversary of his last booster) helps in this fight.

In the meantime, Circé clearly sees Charlie as a role-model and watches him carefully to see just how grown up Labrador retrievers should behave. She’s been much less excitable and puppy-ish over the past few weeks and I’m sure that’s much more to do with Charlie’s influence than any training we’ve been trying to drum into her usually deaf ears. There are inevitable lapses, though. Charlie is, wisely, more of a watcher than a doer and considers very carefully what activities he’s going to take part in. He clearly believes a supervisory role is more fitting for a dog of his standing and experience when it comes to most jobs around the house and garden. Circé, on the other hand, loves to muck in and get involved, especially when it comes to re-distributing the tools when I’m gardening!

Charlie, for his part, is getting into the swing of how things work at number 26. He’s acquired Circé’s taste for apples and melon and takes part in the dishwasher-loading ritual which involves looking out for interesting things to lick as the dirty plates and pans go in. However, I’m convinced he’s doing this to be polite, as if it’s the done thing round here and he doesn’t want to upset his hosts, rather than because he really thinks it’s a good idea. The expression on his face is as if he’s wearing the hat from his Christmas cracker under sufferance because he’s with people who do that sort of thing but it’s certainly not something he’d choose to do.

Of course having Charlie around has also shown us how lovely it is to have two dogs rather than one, as if we were in any doubt. As Viv’s daughter Rachel says, when Circé misses Charlie when he goes back to Wales at the end of July, there’s only one option. But with everything else going on, she may just have to wait a while.