Roseburg, 1987
Back home with another generation.
In 1987, newspaper reports found Chuck near Roseburg, Oregon, with four German Shepherds: Bo, spelled Beau in those later reports, aged seven; London, thirteen; Lance, about eighteen months; and Toro, ten months. The young ages of Lance and Toro show that familiar names had continued into another generation of Chuck’s dogs.
Beau was described as having starred in most episodes of the revived The Littlest Hobo. Whatever the exact division of work between the dogs, Beau was clearly an important part of the television team. Chuck was still demonstrating his ideas and planning an educational videotape. The reports also pictured the dogs relaxing together around Chuck’s home before responding when he addressed them. The travelling production team had become an ordinary household again, but he was still living with dogs, teaching them and trying to explain what he believed they could understand.
The friendships formed around the programme endured too. Producer Christopher Dew later remembered that he and Chuck spoke by telephone several times a year.
Still arguing his case
The ideas had not left him.
When Gary Bedingfield interviewed Chuck on 6 November 1995, Chuck said he had one dog left. He was still passionately discussing canine education and intelligence, and told Bedingfield that he had spoken with university psychology departments about his ideas. The household was much smaller, but the questions that began with London still mattered to him.
A companion called Aura
The dogs were still with him.
A Roseburg News-Review profile reproduced in 2006 named Aura, a German Shepherd Chuck kept as a pet after he stopped working professionally with dogs.
By then the travelling household belonged to the past, but the dogs were still around him in another form. Portraits of Toro, London, Lance, Beau and Thorn hung in his room at Manor House.
Chuck died in Roseburg on 6 September 2010, aged 91. He was laid to rest at Roseburg National Cemetery, a final connection to the Army service that had been part of his life long before London. His long life had carried him from a Wisconsin farm family to Army service, baseball grounds, film sets and television studios. Through it all, the dogs and the ideas they inspired became the part of his story that endured.
