For as long as I can remember I’ve always been a dog person. At a young age, I was obsessed with the idea of being a “dog mom” which back then, wasn’t even a thing yet! My parents would always say “we’re never getting an inside dog” but boy did they not know what the future held!
When I was around 9 years old.. can’t be sure (childhood was a blur) but it was definitely around that age. There was one Christmas all I wanted was a dog but not like a “family dog” like we’ve had in the past. No… This dog was going to be all MINE and if I had a dog there was no way it was going to sleep outside! Of course my parents, the buzzkills back then, kept saying “no, you won’t take care of it” or “no, a dog is too much work” or the popular “no, dogs pee in the house!” Well at the ripe age of almost, maybe 9, I was determined to get my dog! I also happen to be the only daughter in my house of boys so I am, by default, my dads favorite. I knew exactly how to get what I wanted. It was a bit of a challenge though since my dad was against the idea of an inside dog.
Not to be deterred… like I said, I know how my dad works. He’s a man of logic and work ethic. If I wanted to show him that I could handle my own dog, I would have to put in the work. So how does a 9 year old prove shes ready for a dog, you may ask? Well, she goes to the library! I checked out as many (children’s) books about dog’s and how to properly take care of them. My dad was impressed but wasn’t convinced I was ready. I mean, fair… I don’t think I read one of those books.
With dad still being a no, it was time for plan B. Gotta go straight to the big man on this one.
That’s right, I asked Santa for a dog. He looked over my head, saw my parents (traitors) shake their head “no”, and said “How about a stuffed dog?” I left The Southern Lights that night utterly defeated.
Just a few days later my mom told me that after church that day, we could to the shelter and “just look” at the dogs they had. I was ecstatic! I ran upstairs when we got home, grabbed my “how to pick the perfect dog” book and waited to go. My mom told me she had to go Christmas shopping and when she got home we could go. So I sat there waiting and waiting… also hoping that my mom was finally going to buy a Christmas present for me, since all of my brothers had presents under the tree with their names on them and there was not one for “Sarah”… Hours went by and finally, I hear my mom come home!
She yelled up the stairs for my to stay put because she had to wrap the presents first and she may have one for me. Once she had put the presents away, she called up and told me she was ready to go and for me to go check under the Christmas tree because I finally had a present underneath.As I turn the corner into the living room, the first thing I saw was my mom holding a camcorder, why was she videotaping me?
I looked under the tree and there was a small grey animal carrier and inside was the sweetest little ball of fluff I had ever seen!
That was the day I met my heart dog, Charlie. He was a white toy poodle, with a little bit of apricot on his ears, he only weighed 1lb! We took a picture of him in a Christmas stocking that day.
There isn’t much of my childhood that I can remember that doesn’t include Charlie. We grew up, side by side. He slept in my bed, even when I promised my mom that I would keep him in his crate. He chewed up a lot of my Barbie dolls and when we moved to England for a year, I was adamant that he move with us. He became an international traveler.
He loved walks, running in the yard, peeing on random things, car rides and specifically hanging his head out the window. We would even take him with us on vacations to Florida and man.. did he love looking at the ocean.
Charlie was also known for stealing food from the table. One time, my mom found him in our living room with a lollipop the he had actually unwrapped and he had it standing up between his paws and he was just sitting there licking it! He’s taken frozen cheese sticks off the counter, eaten our takeout food while we were in the kitchen and countless stolen bites of chocolate throughout the years!
Charlie wasn’t just my childhood dog, he was my best friend. He was my “baby.”
When I left home for college, I didn’t anticipate how much I would miss him, and I became so homesick for my dog. I missed my family too… but that ache in my heart was for Charlie. As life went on… life got hard. My family went through some rough patches and Charlie was always our constant. The one who always smiled and wagged his tail when we would come home. The one who was always willing to give a hug and a kiss. The one who was always there for you. We really fell in love with Charlie, in a different way, during that time. My family had realized he really was more than just a pet. He was apart of our family.
It was around this time Charlie had turned 10 years old. He was starting to slow down and lost a little bit that pep in his step. I had met someone who told me that their dog went through the same thing and what really helped bring life back into their dog was adopting another dog. I was all for this and surprisingly so were my parents.
That was when we got Lily. Charlie absolutely resented her in the beginning! When it became apparent to him that she wasn’t just “visiting” he realized he had to show her who was really in charge.
I mean, it worked, getting Lily did spur life and energy into Charlie once again. Instead of lovingly playing with her like I had imagined in my head. They would fight like cats and dogs. Any toy Lily had, Charlie had to take it away, and vice versa.
Eventually, Charlie ended up loving his little sister. This was around the time we opened Southern Barker, but that’s a different story.
By the time Charlie turned 13 years old we had added two more dogs to our family!
This was also when Charlie got sick. Charlie had a malignant tumor on his chest, no matter how hard we tried it kept coming back and it kept getting bigger. We did countless surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation, but nothing helped. The cancer had spread at this point and he had a tumor pop up on his lymph node under his leg. This tumor was worse than the others, It was growing at a fast and dangerous rate. We would have it removed and within weeks it would grow back.
We realized there was only so much we could do to buy him time and we didn’t want the time he had left to be spend at the hospital and recovering from surgeries. We would just let the tumor grow and let him enjoy his remaining days. When the tumor had grown so much that he had difficulty walking and was even in danger of bursting, on our our vets begged for us to let her take it off one last time and she was very confident that with a laser she could kill as many of the cells as possible and it could slow the growth of the tumor.
At this point the only thing wrong with Charlie was the tumor. He was experiencing no other symptoms and was in perfect health. It seemed unjust to put him down when he had so much life left. I told him this would be the last time. It was a rough surgery and was a rough recovery time. He could even walk for a week afterwards. I still don’t know why or how but our vet was right. The tumor didn’t grow back immediately and if it was still there, it was growing at a much slower pace.
We were so relived and those few months of no tumor, were some of Charlie’s best months. I wouldn’t change anything because I got more time with him. He was even able to make it to his 14th birthday and to celebrate we had a cake smash photo shoot!
By the time Christmas came around and there was no sign of any tumors, I was so hopeful. Two weeks before Christmas, we were getting ready for bed and Charlie, at this point, loved to sleep in the living room since stairs were hard on his legs. My mom noticed he was starting to gasp and acted as if he needed to throw up. I came to check on him and placed my hands on his belly. I immediately knew something was wrong. His stomach was as hard as a rock and was so extended that you could physically see how big it was. His stomached looked like a balloon. We immediately took him to the emergency vet. They found that his stomach had flipped. For a dog owner, this is your worst nightmare. If you’re not familiar with Gastric Dilation Volvulus (GDV), this is when the stomach becomes overstretched and rotated by excessive gas content or bloat. This can be extremely painful for dogs because the pressure form their stomach can make it hard to breathe. They ended up having to do an emergency surgery to fix his stomach.
He was in the hospital for a week. When he was finally able to come home he wasn’t the same. I was so sure he would wake up one morning and bounce back from this surgery like he had in the past but that day never came.
By Christmas, he was barely eating, drinking and he wouldn’t even get excited about treats or peanut butter.
The day after Christmas it was like I was dreaming. I woke up and Charlie was sitting up all bright eyed, wagging his tail, and was excited to eat breakfast! I was so relived and it felt like this pressure had been taken off my shoulders.
We had an employee call in sick so I offered to cover since Charlie was feeling better. I was at work all day. My mom texted me that day telling me how Charlie was acting totally normal again and would even follow the grandkids around wherever they went. She said he had the best day.
I came home exhausted from work that night and immediately went to bed. Fifteen minutes later I get a text from my mom to come check on Charlie he was acting weird. My heart sunk and I felt like I wanted to throw up.I didn’t even need to touch him to know that his stomach had flipped again. I just cradled him in my arms and carried him in the house. Inside, my mom asked me, with tears in her eyes, if she thought she should come with me. I could tell she meant if I thought this was it. The vet visit no one wanted to make. I was crying and told her that yes she should come. I cried the whole way to the vet and kept thinking “should I roll down the window and let him hang his head out one last time?” In the end I never did. When I left later that night, alone, all I could think about is why didn’t I roll down that window. Years later, that will be one of my biggest regrets.
At this point the staff at Bluegrass Emergency Vet knew us and knew about Charlie’s past. They immediately took Charlie back for an ultrasound. When the nurse came back into the room she couldn’t hold back her tears when she told us that his stomach had flipped again and that he was not a good candidate for surgery.
Even though I knew that day would come it was still just such a shock that it was actually happening. His veins were shot from all of the surgeries he’d been through so they had to put him under and administer the euthanasia directly into his heart. I ended up holding him and telling him how much I loved him until he went to sleep. When the doctor asked if I was ready I told her I wasn’t but to go ahead. I asked them to save me some of his hair and then he was gone.
Losing Charlie was one of the biggest heartbreaks I’d ever felt. Even though I was glad that he was no longer suffering or in any pain, that last year of his life was a tough one.
I always knew Charlie’s passing would affect me in a huge way but I never anticipated how long and how deeply sad I was going to be. It was the little things that broke my heart. Like, to think that I was never going to see him again or when I would feed my dogs afterwards and realize his bowl would always be empty.
Grief really is a funny thing because it comes and goes. 99% of the time I am okay looking at his pictures and talking about him to customers but then there’s that last 1% that will always sneak up on you. Like today when I realized today would’ve been Charlie’s 16th Birthday.
I know there’s a lot of debate out there about whether or not dog’s go to heaven. After loving a dog the way that I did, there isn’t a doubt in my mind about if I’m going to see Charlie again.
I’d like to think that I loved Charlie so much that he now has a part of my heart and soul forever.
Happy Birthday Charlie… and to when we meet again.
Love always,
Sarah
