Charlie the hero needs your help
Charlie the poodle saved his owner’s life after an armed intruder punched her and tried to slit her throat. Now he’s sick — and his owner is trying to raise money to save him.
Just over a year ago Pip Clark, 32, was getting ready for work when she found a man inside her Christchurch home.
Charlie, her 5-year-old standard poodle, was upstairs when Clark came across the intruder in the ground floor of her house.
“He started punching me and I was in shock and he went to punch me again but he actually had a knife. He tried to bring it down on my neck but I put my arm up so he cut my arm quite bad. I screamed and that’s when Charlie heard and came down and went for the guy,” she said.
”[Charlie] was so scary. He was like an attack dog. He just went for this guy.”
When the intruder saw the black dog racing toward him, teeth bared, he ran out the door, jumped the fence and disappeared.
“He saved my life,” Clarke said.
I screamed and that’s when Charlie heard and came down and went for the guy. Pip Clark
But ever since then Charlie had been nervous of people. He became anxious and started eating household objects when Clark was not home.
A couple of weeks ago Charlie became sick. On Monday he started vomiting and developed diarrhoea and on Tuesday he started defecating blood.
The vet at Papanui Pet Doctors did x-rays and scans and found a blockage in his intestine so operated on him yesterday.
Vet nurse Aime Bruce said they found bits of towel blocking his intestines which they managed to remove.
They believed they had removed it all and expected he would fully recover, she said. But Clark, who can only work part time because of serious organ problems she has been dealing with for the last 14 years, says she is struggling to afford Charlie’s treatment.
She believed the vet bill would come to about $5000 all up. She has used her savings, sold some of her jewellery and borrowed money from family but has still come up short.
The vet is willing to let her pay off the debt but she is appealing for help on Givealittle so she can at least make a decent deposit on it.
Clark said the dog was given to her as a gift when she seriously ill in hospital a few years ago.
“Charlie came into my life when I thought I couldn’t survive my severe injuries any longer. When the treatment was excruciatingly painful he was always there for cuddles and helped me through,” she said.
Clark said she would be lost without Charlie.
“Having him around really helped me with that guy breaking into my house and being sick. He’s my support. Losing him, I couldn’t have survived that.”