Charlie, the Dog Who Could Sing

By Jean Young

Charlie is a Cocker Spaniel, and he loves to sing. Unfortunately, the neighbors are not fond of his voice and make unkind threats about the noise. Chelsea and Taylor, Charlie’s owners, love him dearly and decide that a move to the country where Charlie can sing to his heart’s content is in order. His new home has a garden, pesky rabbits, and lots of room to roam. He makes four new canine friends who appreciate his singing and like to chase coyotes. But, when a wild bear comes down from the mountains, Charlie and his friends have their paws full protecting their families.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gazebo Gardens Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Mar 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781938281549

Jean Young

Jean Young is a mother of two amazing children and a wife to a loving husband. She enjoyed reading as a child and often dreamed about traveling to faraway places. She lived in England, Africa and Nepal during her studies but she wishes she had traveled more. She loves making up stories for her children while on vacation to keep them occupied during the times waiting in line or waiting for food at the restaurants. Some of her stories were born from those times.

Book preview

Charlie

The Dog Who Could Sing

Jean Young

Illustrated by Jeff Cheney

No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright 2015, Jean Young. All rights reserved.

Cover art by Jeff Cheney.

ISBN: 978-1-938281-54-9

Published 2015, Dream Garden Publications an imprint of Gazebo Gardens Publishing, LLC.

www.GazeboGardensPublishing.com

This book is dedicated to

my grandchildren and great-grandchildren

for all the love and joy

they have brought into my life.

CHAPTER ONE

CHARLIE’S SONGS

Charlie was a cocker spaniel—a beautiful, shiny black dog with silken fur on his legs and tail. Chelsea, his lady owner, often petted his long, soft ears, murmuring her love. Taylor, his gentleman owner, adored Charlie and compared his fur to velvet and suede.

Charlie loved his owners very much. They lived together in a big, green house on Colonial Avenue in Morristown.

Charlie had his own door into the kitchen from the back porch. He had a bed there in a cardboard box with a pink blanket as a mattress. Next to Taylor’s big chair, he had a wicker bed with an emerald green cotton mattress. It was his favorite bed. He had another bed in a laundry basket in the basement. It was padded with an old bathrobe of Chelsea’s. He didn’t like this bed very much, as he had to use it when Chelsea and Taylor were to be gone all day.

The basement had a door for him to use that opened into a fenced side yard. Charlie did not like the side yard. It was always shady, and Charlie preferred to rest in the sun and sniff all the varied outside smells with his sensitive, black cocker spaniel nose.

However, he loved to listen to the many sounds in the side yard. He could hear all of the sounds from the neighborhood echo off the pickets of the fence. He heard children playing, birds chirping, and cars driving by.

Charlie’s greatest claim to fame was his magnificent voice. It was a pure, clear, high tenor. While cocker spaniels were famous for their voices, Charlie’s was special.

His barks and howls had become known for their power. That was because he practiced. He practiced until he never became short of breath or had to take rest breaks. He was famous in the neighborhood for his songs.

He did not practice much when Chelsea and