Charlie

It wasn't too long ago that I posted about Charlie, but I've put this post off for too long. I'm already getting emotional and I've only written one sentence! Wish me luck getting through this...

Charlie was the first dog I had ever had. Matt had dogs growing up, but I never had. I am not a particularly emotional person, and have questioned my own ability to love more than once- one of my fears about having a baby. So in January, when Tim called and told Matt that the puppies were born, I was a little apprehensive. Matt has wanted a dog since we got married, but is reasonable enough to wait until we had our own place. Well, here we are, six months in our new home and I don't seem to have any more excuses. The puppies were so darling. It was so crazy to watch them grow over the 8 weeks they stayed with Paisley (the mother dog).

The day we went to pick our puppy, Matt and I had talked about which one to get. He wanted the male with short brown fur, and I wanted the female with yellow fur and white markings. I didn't really know why, but I had been drawn to her from the first day. She had been fairly shy and calm, which maybe felt familiar. We stopped at IFA to get the puppy's shots and a few other basics (collar- blue because we were getting a male dog, dog dishes, leash, kennel, food, etc.). When we got to the house, all 9 puppies were running around the yard. Matt picked each one up, chased them all around, and finally decided that he wanted the yellow puppy. I was shocked! He seemed drawn to her in the same inexplicable way that I was. Kamie gave her the shot and she didn't even squeak, and then we went home.

I held her in my arms all the way home. Matt and I had been throwing around names all day and he finally said, "I think I like Charlie." So that was it. Charlie. I made Matt stop at IFA again and exchange the collar for a pink one, and of course I carried her with us into IFA. Everyone has to stop when they see a tiny puppy and say something! She was so small and had those beautiful white markings on her soft fur. I swear I could have pet her for hours, because she was so soft. When we got home, we set up her little kennel and everything and she just laid on the blanket. That night, Matt put her in her kennel and she cried a lot. He went out in the living room and slept on the floor a few feet away from her kennel so she could see him and know that she was still safe. I was so impressed that he was so patient. When I woke up, I felt so bad that I had slept all night in our bed and wanted to give him some time to sleep, but he was in a great mood. He loved her so much already!

She spent a few nights like this, and Matt did the same thing, even though he had to get up and go to work. Every morning, he would pack up the huge kennel into his tiny car, along with her food and toys, and cart her off to work. He pulled her kennel out during work and had her tied to it during the day until he felt comfortable letting her off. Every night, he would unload everything back into the house without complaint. I was so impressed. He did so much extra work in the morning and evening so he could take Charlie with him to work. She rapidly learned about the job site, and would run around while Matt was getting the job ready in the morning, nap until lunch while tied to the kennel, run around at lunch, and again nap until it was time to run around and clean up. She soon was good enough to be let off the leash for longer periods of time, until she was never on the leash. Matt still brought her kennel to work for a while so she would have somewhere cool and shady to sleep, but soon she started finding her own places to nap. Matt would tell me stories almost every night about what funny thing she had done at work. Everyone on the job seemed to love her.

In the evenings, Matt and I tried to take her for walks every day. She never really needed a leash. At first she would walk right under our feet and we would trip over her every few minutes. She got stepped on more than once! Soon she started venturing out further and further, but would always stop and wait for us to catch up. The only thing we had problems with on walks was her curiosity. She had to smell everything! And good luck if there was someone outside. She would run over to them and check them out. Especially kids. Charlie LOVED kids. We were really working hard to teach her to stay calm around the kids and not to jump on them. A few nieces and nephews were knocked down by the excited puppy, but she was learning. One day, everyone was over at Randy and Jenny's house and Charlie was kind of hiding under our chairs instead of playing. Matt picked her up and noticed that she had a huge lip! One of the kids got a little too rough with her and gave her a fat lip! After that, she was a lot calmer around the kids. I always loved it when we were outside and the neighbor girls would scream out, "Charlie!" Then I was mad because she would take off to play with them and I would have to chase her and carry her home, which got really hard as I started getting more and more pregnant! At this point, Matt decided that she needed to learn to heel while we were walking, so he borrowed a choke collar and we would practice. It was awful! I always made sure we let her off to run around before we got home.

Charlie loved to play with her toys. That first week, we bought her some small ropes, little tennis balls, some softer Easter eggs with squeakers inside, a little toy dog with a squeaky head, and a squeaky rubber Peep. The dog was her favorite, but she figured out how to squeak the Peep first. It was just big enough for her tiny mouth. She wasn't really interested in chasing the balls until later, so every time we threw the ball we had to go get it ourselves. Matt loved to play tug-of-war with her and basically just wrestle. She would pounce on him at home. One day they were wrestling and she pounced on Matt and bit his ear. He was so surprised that he pulled away, but she had her teeth sunk into his ear and he got a huge cut and was bleeding pretty bad! Both of us had some cuts from her little teeth. She did learn pretty quickly that I didn't like to play rough. She soon started to come sit by me and just let me pet her. At one point, just after I started to really look pregnant, Charlie was super attached to me. Whenever I was home she would come sit on my feet, or put her face up next to me on the couch. It was so weird. I started to feel like she knew who I was and wanted to see me. She would run up to me when I got home from work, or when she and Matt got home every day. She listened to Matt way better than she listened to me, but she liked to sit by me.

As Charlie started getting bigger, and she grew way fast, she started to get more and more comfortable with us and our home and life. She would put her head out the window in the car with Matt. Matt always said that she would scoot right up next to him in the car on the way to work and he would have to give her bites of his doughnut. I think that he bought doughnuts on the way to work just so he could share them with her! When we drove in my car, she had to sit on the floor by my feet, but was getting too big! It didn't help that I was getting bigger too! Charlie rarely had accidents in the house, and was learning how to let us know when it was an emergency and couldn't wait! She would go when we put her outside and told her to go. Whenever Matt would call her, she would come. He told me about the crazy distances she would go at work, and she'd come running when he called. I did get called twice from people who found her when she had run too far, and both times she had found some kids playing and wanted to join in! She still loved playing with toys and was just starting to fetch. Matt was teaching her how to stay and wait until he told her she could go get the ball and the kids loved to see how long she would wait. Matt had taught her how to sit, shake and lay down, although she wasn't very good at laying down when she was excited. Matt tried to teach her how to roll over, but that wasn't going very well!

Charlie was the best dog I could have asked for and I don't think I even knew it. On Thursday, May 28, Matt texted me after school got over to tell me that Charlie had been hit by a car and killed at work. I was in complete shock. I immediately started crying. I called Matt and he told me that she had been off her leash for only a few minutes and then he looked for her and she was lying in the street. Someone had hit her and driven away. He and I both cried together and I went home and we cried more together. We were both just so surprised that it had happened. She was never curious about the road and it didn't make sense that she had run into the road. We were both destroyed. That night, we drove out to Tim's house to bury her at the farm. It seemed fitting to bury her somewhere that she wouldn't be bothered and where we could visit. Matt had taken her collar off and as we left the house I grabbed the collar and her toy dog. I just held them in my hand the whole time they were digging the hole. I had thought about keeping them and putting them with a picture of her, but when we got her out of the car (Matt had wrapped her in the blanket she sat on in his car), I asked him to put her collar on her. He told me not to look, but I needed to see her one more time. Matt had carefully wrapped her up so she looked like she was sleeping. He put her collar back on and I tucked her toy dog into her arms and we wrapped her up again. We cried more and Matt said the sweetest prayer. It was in that moment that I realized how much I loved this little puppy that had joined our family for such a brief time. That night and the next day were really hard. Her stuff was everywhere. Every little thing I saw reminded me of her. Matt couldn't go to work the next day because he couldn't bear to go without her. I would randomly burst into tears after something reminded me of her. It was probably the most somber last day of school I've had or will ever have.

Matt and I are both still so sad that Charlie was taken from us so soon. We were looking forward to her interacting with the baby. We were excited for summer so we could teach her how to swim and take her camping. We were just getting ready to build her kennel outside so she could start sleeping outside. We were taken so off guard, and that made it so much harder. We miss Charlie so much. She was already a huge part of our family. We feel like there is an empty space in our home now. Everyone was so nice when they found out. Many people told us that they cried or were very sad when they found out. She was such a sweet dog and I think everyone saw how happy we were because of her. I can't imagine how anyone deals with losing children or other family members. I have felt so guilty for being so upset about losing Charlie when I know so many people who have faced much worse. I thank God for my many blessings, especially for the almost three months we were able to have Charlie.

This is the last picture I took of Charlie. It was taken three days before she died. I was laughing because she had fallen asleep upside-down in her kennel. She woke up right when I took the picture. Matt and I bought a new couch just a few days before and she was very confused by the living room. We had moved her "bed" aka blanket and every time we told her to go to her bed she would go into her kennel. She had just been starting to go into her kennel herself when she wanted to sleep. The day we got the new couch, I also had just gotten a new coffee table. Within a couple hours, Charlie had already chewed the leg of the table! I was so mad. Matt came home and Charlie was hiding on her bed because she knew how mad I was was. Matt told me we could paint over it and it would be fine. Obviously, we aren't going to paint over it now. Every time I see those little chewing marks, I am reminded of my puppy.

Charlie's collar and puppy toy. Her collar was so pink that when Matt washed her, the pink dye would run into her fur. We were constantly readjusting the collar because she was growing so fast. That little puppy toy was her favorite. She had ripped it open and pulled one of the legs off, but still loved it. Cassie bought her a new toy puppy but I couldn't take the other one away!

Charlie's gravesite. Myrna and Kamie had both gone down to lay some flowers on her grave. It was sweet how many people shared their condolences with us after she died.

Charlie all grown. We love you puppy.

We will always love you and will remember you forever.

XOXO