Charlie Garbanzo!

We're proud to introduce you all to the newest member of our family, Charlie Garbanzo Ruiz Brelsford.

Judging from his behavior during our first 5 days together, I have a feeling that Charlie will be playing a pivotal role in future blog posts.

Ernesto and I have been talking about getting a second dog for a long time, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that we felt we could realistically implement our plan.  We started to comb the newspapers looking for a puppy.  I was really pushing for a German Shorthair Pointer, but the breed is virtually non-existent here.  I scoured old posts from the national newspaper and found the name of a man who had a litter of pointers in 2009.  I emailed him to find out whether he knew of any puppies in country.  He did not, but assured me he'd contact me if he heard of any in the future.

Less than a week later he emailed me with a Facebook link to an adoption organization.  A woman had found a pointer on the street and had been watching him grow skinnier over the course of a month.   In a country with no German Shorthair Pointers, here was a stray in need of a home.  Fate?  A sign?  I thought it must be.  I wrote the woman and told her that we were extremely interested in the dog and would drive down today to take a look at him.  That was the original plan anyway.

But last Sunday, Ernesto called the woman who had posted the adoption notice.  We had thought the dog was in a temporary shelter, but we learned that he was still on the street (the girl feeding him was a teenager and her parents wouldn't let her bring him in the house).  So Ernesto and I sat in our kitchen contemplating what to do.  Wait a week and risk that the dog would be hit, die, or be taken by someone else?  Or make a 7 hour roundtrip drive and essentially commit ourselves to an adoption without knowning the dog's history, temperment, or Kaia-compatibility-quotient?  Aside from these concerns, we were also in the middle of coordinating a short-course at the Institute and working extremely long days.  For this reason, we had left Kaia in San Jose with Ernesto's parents, so we couldn't even consult her before making the decision.  The timing was not ideal for introducing a new member to our family nor for providing him with the attention he deserved.  But he was on the street, and certainly getting very little positive attention anyway . . .  Decisions, decisions.

In the end, we called the girl back and told her that we'd come get the dog.  As we climbed in the car we got a text from her: can't find the dog, but know it's around here.  Might have found shelter to wait out storm.  Will keep looking.

So we sat in the idling car, deciding whether it was mad to make a 3.5 hour drive for a dog that couldn't be located.  Ernesto texted back: on our way, crossing our fingers we'll find him.  And with that, we made the drive to Ciudad Colon, met the girl who had been feeding  him, and walked the streets looking for our dog.  After a few minutes, we spotted him darting through a yard.  And while the dog wasn't interested in us,  he did eventually come to the girl, who helped us get him in our car.  And with that, we had a dog.

We arrived to Monteverde at 9pm with our new friend, who had slept on my lap in the backseat of the car for most of the ride.  We then coaxed him into the shower (and learned that he's not a water dog), and watched as bucket after bucket of brown water poured off of him.  He then slept, quite happily, next to our bed. 

The next day we took the dog for a long walk, fed him plentifully, and put him in the bathroom.  We grabbed a quick breakfast at a local soda (diner) before heading to work, and it was there that we settled on the perfect name for our new, very sweet, dopey looking new guy: Charlie Garbanzo Marx.  English, Spanish, and German.  But for short, Charlie Garbanzo.  And for super short: Charlie.

We returned in the early afternoon to check on Charlie to discover that our little guy had an impressive verticle leap, having knocked most items off of our six-foot high shelf.  Note to self: remove items from six-foot high shelf.

The next day, we cleared everything from the bathroom or put it on the 7-foot high shelf.  We took Charlie for a very nice walk and went to work.  Ernesto went home around 3:30pm to pick Charlie up for a vet appointment.  I got a call from him a few minutes later "You need to come home.  The house is flooded."

I reached deep within myself and rediscovered the speed-walking skills that earned me the Cedar Cliff High School speed-walking gym record and made it back to the house in record time.  What I saw was awe-inspiring, and not in the good way.  The entire house, except our bedroom (which is raised a foot above the rest of the foundation), was covered in an inch of water.  Apparently, our house is not level, because all of the water from the bathroom (on the far west side of the house), flowed down to the laundry room (the most eastern room in our house).  Charlie had ransacked the bathroom, knocking the six-foot high shelf itself to the floor, ripping the toilet lid off of its hinges, and - most disasterously - breaking the water pipe that brings all of our water into the house.  We have no idea how long water flowed into the house, but Ernesto found Charlie sitting in the shower, which ironically, was the only dry spot left in the house.

After an hour of sweeping water out of the house, we'd made little progress.  We called our friends, Justin and Sofia, for help.  Not only did they show up with two additional brooms, a mop, and a load of towels, they also brought pizza and beer and stayed to help us clean up.  As we mopped, we recited all of the positive sides of the situation:

The floor hasn't been this clean in ages!  The scorpions won't be returning for a while! It could have been sewage water!  It could have been rainy season! 

Three hours later, the floor was almost dry.  We then packed some things and slept at Justin and Sofia's house.  Charlie, tickled to be with us, let out periodic, satisfied groans of contentment.

The next day we decided Charlie would stay outside.  We tied him to our laundry post with a makeshift collar and departed for work.  Thirty  minutes later, Justin and Sofia called to tell us that Charlie was at their house (about a mile away), playing with their dogs.  By the end of the day, he was waiting for us in our front yard, wagging his tail happily.  The next day I bought him a real collar, which Ernesto secured to a thick towing rope (that successfully pulled three different vehicles out of muddy ditches).  About an hour later, another call from Justin and Sofia.  Charlie was back at their house, sans collar.  By the time we got home later that day, Charlie was back in our front yard.  The tow rope had been gnawed clean.  We still don't know when or where he ditched his collar.

Now one might think we'd be angry with good old Charlie.  And while Ernesto fumed for a few minutes during flood clean up, and I cried when an hour of sweeping made no dent in the amount of water covering the floor of our house, the truth is that neither of us have really gotten upset with him.  And once you meet Charlie, you'll understand why.  Everyone who has met our Houdini has agreed that he is a fabulous guy.  He is extraordinarily sweet and open with humans, and equally calm and even tempered with dogs and other animals.  He's just a great guy to be around.  It's when he's not around that things go wrong.
And it's hard to be mad at a dog that suffers from separation anxiety even if such anxiety poses challenges.

Today, Charlie made the trip with us to San Jose to meet Kaia, Beto, and his grandparents.  He was a huge hit. Charlie made an excellent impression, snuggling up to both of Ernesto's parents for TLC.  And Kaia immediately wanted to play with him, which is a rarity.  Beto presented his butt for ample sniffing and made dogged, persistent attempts to engage in play.  And while Charlie remained calm and curious throughout these introductions, he didn't seem to have the energy to play.  He also continually favored one front paw, which we had noticed earlier, but only today linked to seemingly random "yelps" and whining. 

We had taken Charlie to see our vet in Monteverde, who administered vaccines and overall gave Charlie a clean bill of health.  And while the Monteverde vet is knowledgable, he's used to treating "country" dogs who are generally only taken to the vet for basic care and maintanence.  So Ernesto's parent's vet made a house visit today and suspects that Charlie has a broken foot.  He also has two broken canines, which makes aging him a challenge (best guess: between 2-4 years).  Charlie Garbanzo, it seems, was likely hit by a car at some point in his street life.  The vet also tested Charlie for erlikia - a disease transmited by ticks and common in Tico dogs.  Erlikia would epxlain Charlie's lethargy and slender frame; and indeed, Charlie tested positive for the disease, which is fortunately treatable.  He's also anemic and has a bacterial infection. 

Tomorrow we will go to find out whether Charlie's leg is actually broken and to pick up medication to treat the infections and anemia.  We're hoping that some of his separation anxiety will diminish with improvements in health and time spent with his more relaxed siblings.  We're also hoping Charlie will soon be well enough to play with his siblings, and to play more actively with us.

So Charlie isn't the dog we hoped to shape and train from puppyhood.  And we have to deal with the emotional baggage and physical ailments that he acquired in a past life.  But in the end, Ernesto and I agree that this is the dog for us.  And I'm pretty sure that Charlie would agree that we're the humans for him.

Charlie Garbanzo.  Trouble with a capital "C"?   Stay tuned . . .