Charlie and my old cat, Fred

Children love Charlie. Like, obsessive love at first sight. As soon as kids see him, they break away from their parents and throw their arms around him like he’s their long-lost grandmother. Meanwhile, the parents look at me like I’m the Willie Wonka of dog-obsessed kids and I’m trying to lure their children to my chocolate factory. Or maybe that’s what I see and I’m just paranoid because I watch a lot of Law & Order: SVU.

Charlie is never super excited to encounter strangers. I don’t know a lot about his past before I adopted him, but it seems like something bad happened. Strangers, especially adult male strangers, send him running behind my legs, his nose in my hand like it’s a security blanket. He still flinches when I have a newspaper or hanger in my hand, like he’s having a flashback to a traumatic event. He’s very wary of almost any new people who want to interact with him.

Charlie

However, Charlie’s so cute and fluffy, children apparently have this overwhelming urge to hug him. Although Hefner is the more outgoing one of the two dogs, children are just drawn to Charlie. I always call him “Mommy’s teddy bear,” so I guess that’s how children see him, too. Charlie usually seems unsure of how to deal with the attention from children, but he accepts it without protest.

Charlie has a completely different reaction when strange adults try to pet him. If someone over the age of 18 reaches out a hand, he backs away and avoids the touch with some kind of gymnastic maneuver that rivals Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix. But let a 6-year-old do that, and he sits there and stares awkwardly at me like he’s not sure what to do.

Charlie has never been sure of cats

When I first met Charlie, I was volunteering with the Humane Society in Tupelo, Mississippi, and a family with three young children seemed intent on adopting him that day (they ultimately didn’t end up taking him home). All three children were climbing on him, pulling on his tail, and grabbing handfuls of his auburn locks. Through it all, he just laid there and looked at them, sniffing at them occasionally. I understood then that even though Charlie had had a rough life so far, he still had a heart for children.

Charlie

That doesn’t mean that Charlie’s child magnetism doesn’t create for some awkward situations for me. I know there are people out there who have nefarious purposes for their dogs, but I use my canine power for good. However, sometimes I still feel like parents look at me as if I’m driving a windowless van (I guess this one would look like the doggie transport van from Dumb and Dumber), shooting bags of candy out t-shirt cannon-style.

The good thing for Charlie in these situations is that it opens him up a little and gets him used to meeting more people. I feel like an un-socialized dog is not a happy dog, and I want Charlie to be happy. And he seems to make the children happy, just by being him.

More than anything, Charlie loves his mommy

But parents, don’t worry: you can keep your kids.