Charlie has been on the down hill health wise for a while.  Recently he has had days where he had trouble getting on his feet.  Of course I was just out of town leaving Dorothy to care for everything while I was gone and he picked then to crash.  Saturday he had a good enough day to go to the back porch and climb up on the lounger.

But he ended up on the front porch unable to get up and Dorothy could not get him up.  She made him a shade tent, kept him with water and hoped I would make it home in time.  I got up super early Sunday and drove home from Bastrop hoping to pet him one last time.  He passed away 10 minutes before I got home.

I really do think he chose his time, dogs and even people do this, leaving on their time to spare the people they love seeing them go.  I wish I had been here for his final moments but I don’t hold it against him.

Charlie was not just a dog, I am a dog person, my dogs are family but this was that “one dog” that enters your life if you are lucky.  From the day I first saw him, he was my constant companion, a family member and a friend.  He had lots of friends, while he loved many there were people who came here often to see him that can understand what I mean because they were Charlie’s friends too.

People like JR, David, Nicole, Nick, Patrick, Thad, Michael, Teressa and a few others.  I am leaving last names off there, those people know who they are, if you were his friend you knew it.  Let me put it this way if I told him on any given day that one of his friends by name was coming that day, he checked the window every 15 minutes until they showed up.

I can’t even explain it, you had to experience it to understand.  My best friend put it this way all the time, “he’s not a normal dog, he is 10% human”.  When I found him, the second I looked at him I said out loud, “that’s my dog”.  Not I want that dog, oh he’s awesome, no, “that’s my dog”.  Two days later he had come down with a chest infection that almost killed him.  The vet thought he was gonna die but in a week he was back and on the mend.

Dorothy and I gave him more than a decade of the best life a dog can have, in that I have joy but for the moment it is over whelmed by true sorrow.  There is a hole in me and a hole in our home.  To have anything come into your life that you instantly know was meant to be a part of it is a tremendous blessing, but losing such a thing hurts.  I write this with some tears in my eyes and I am not ashamed of any of them.

Charlie was a friend, he was family and I never doubted he’d of given his own life to defend my grand kids.  He was my constant companion, with the ducks, in the garden, on the sofa.  He was not just a loving dog, he was the kind of dog that full on loved you back, you could feel it emanate from him and at the same time he was a beast with zero fear in his heart who knew his job well, defend all that is here.  If the Rainbow Bridge is a real place, I will see him there some day and from now until I am gone he will live in my heart.  Charlie lived hard and never wasted a minute of his dash.

If you have to ask how a man can love a simple dog this much, I can only end with this, someday I hope you are blessed enough to understand.

TSPC will return tomorrow.