To my Charlie, with love.

This week has been the hardest week we have ever experienced.

This week we said goodbye to our beloved Charlie. He had been my wife’s special mate before we had come to be married and he very quickly became as much my best friend as he was hers. He moved into our first place with us, came to date nights at the drive in, spent holidays at the beach, and got us through covid lockdowns.

Charlie had been suffering from arthritis for a long time and had been coping quite well. His cocktail of drugs slowly grew larger and larger as the disease progressed. Years ago, he was started on Meloxicam and Cartrophen. The development of Beransa fortunately coincided with his worsening pain and this drug was life changing for Charlie. Without it he would have lost him twelve months earlier. By the end he was on Cartrophen, Meloxicam, Amantadine, Beransa, Panadol and Ketamine as required. He truly was an example of a dog on a multi modal pain program. And it worked. On Tuesday, it stopped working.

While he had been slowing down significantly in the past month, on Tuesday my wife took him into our driveway to make chalk drawings with our two-year-old. Charlie didn’t want to walk the length of the driveway and instead sat and watched from a far. Something which our “Velcro” dog would never have done. He was a constant shadow and his lack of interest in walking 5-10 metres was significant. I soon received a very emotional phone call from home while I was at work, and a decision was very sadly made that tonight was time.

By a tiny piece of small fortune, on a day where I wasn’t expecting any of the sort, my day was mostly empty of bookings and so my boss kindly sent me home to have one more day with Charlie. It was a perfect sunny winter Melbourne day, a sign from the heavens that we should have a last beautiful day with our boy. Through tears we took our favourite old boy to our favourite park where we shared a coffee and chips. Charlie took the lions share of the chips. Even chocolate cookies were allowed.

We took him our clinic that night where a friend euthanised him for us after consuming an entire tub of his favourite Gippsland yogurt and nurses shared chocolate chips with him. Saying goodbye was the hardest thing we have ever had to do and we are definitely feeling as though the home is a lot quieter and emptier. We are both devastated. With time I know we will heal but we very much miss our noisy, beautiful little mate. Some dogs are more special than others and this one was one in a million.

So, my dear Charlie,

Thank you for the way you barked and wiggled your tail with love when I walked in the door.

Thank you for always being glad to see me.

Thank you for the hugs and the copious amounts of hair you left behind them.

Thank you for keeping me company when covid kept us locked away.

Thank you for always sitting at my feet under the kitchen table.

Thank you the loudly stomping up the hallway when it was time for bed.

Thank you for eating all our toilet paper rolls or other cardboard you could find.

Thank you for loving our children as they entered your life.

Thank you for filling our lives with joy and constant love.

We will miss you forever, and you will always hold a piece of our heart.

Goodbye for now my boy, all you asked was to be loved, and you were loved and adored beyond measure.

XX