Charlie Ashmont : Probably a pit bull, definitely a 'good boy'Charlie Ashmont, arguably Dorchester’s most influential and well-known canine of the last decade, died on April 10 following an illness caused by heart disease. His owner of the last 11 years, Joyce Linehan, who serves as Mayor Martin Walsh’s senior policy advisor, announced the sad news on Saturday.

“Charlie Ashmont left this world last night. I am forever grateful to him for the love, lessons and laughter. He was diagnosed with heart disease last summer. The end came mercifully fast for him. He was fine, and then he wasn’t,” said Linehan. “He rescued me 11 years ago this past February. I know he touched a lot of you as well. He was such a good boy.”

Charlie Ashmont was in the news over the years as Linehan waged a campaign to repeal a city ordinance that imposed strict rules on the owners of pit bulls. Charlie, Linehan wrote in a 2013 op-ed for the Reporter was “probably a pit bull.”

“That I say 'probably' is indicative of a problem of identification in breed-specific legislation,” wrote Linehan, who noted that it only mattered “if a police or animal control officer thought perhaps he looked like one, he could have been seized from me, or I could be fined if I walked him without a muzzle.”

Charlie’s passing elicited a loving Tweet from Mayor Marty Walsh: “Yesterday we lost #Boston’s Charlie Ashmont, a beloved dog adopted from MSPCA. Adopt a pet & let a new family member rescue YOU in his honor.”