COMMENTARY: Saying Good-Bye to Charlie

When we brought Charlie home that cold March evening in 1997, I wasn't thinking forward to the day when we would be forced to make the awful decision to put her to sleep.

No, that cold night, I had my hands full, literally, trying to keep a wiggling bundle of six-week-old puppy safely inside my jacket while we walked the few yards to our house. Our neighbors' dogs had a litter and we'd been waiting to bring our girl home since we first picked her at only three weeks old.

The first months with a new puppy are alternately challenging and hilarious. Puppies are so full of play and pep, but they're also into chewing (everything) and chasing little kids to nip their toes. Charlie was no different, but after a while we noticed she wasn't coming when we called her or she would sleep straight through our arrival home.

Turns out, our girl was deaf because, as we learned, the same recessive gene that made her white also can cause blindness, deafness or both.

Well, by then it was too late. We loved her and she was part of our family. There was never a question of giving her up. We stopped using words to try and train her and instead used hand signals. If she wasn't looking at us, we would stomp the floor or tap her lightly. When she went out at night, we would turn the porch light on and off to call her back inside.

Charlie is short for Charlotte, a name chosen by our son. His first choice was Bart, but we explained she was a girl and Charlie is what he decided. Our youngest daughter learned to walk holding Charlie's tail and our middle daughter used the picnic table and lawn chairs as an "agility" course in the backyard.

I called Charlie my 65-pound shadow. She may have been deaf, but she knew when I left a room and it was typically only a few seconds before I would hear the jingle of her collar behind me. When our cat got sick and died, Charlie was a great comfort to all of us. I was grateful we had her after my dad died because she knew when to be close and when I needed to power walk.

And there really wasn't a person or another dog that Charlie didn't think was her friend. She was friendly and sweet, ready to play with just about anyone who was game. Sometimes she would wag her tail so hard, she just had to sit down. After Grandpa died, Grandma became one of most favorite people, though we suspect it's because Grandma keeps dog treats in her car.

In 2008, we added Spike to our family. Charlie was already 11 and we worried if she might be too old to accept a puppy. But Spike seemed to invigorate her while she taught him how to be a good dog at the same time. They turned our once-lush back yard into a dirt pit with all their play and we couldn't take one dog for a walk without taking the other.

The last year or so, though, Charlie slowed down considerably. Our jogging days were over. She was still excited and willing to go for walks, but not at the same clip. She still played with Spike out in the back yard, but Charlie did more lunging at Spike to make him run than actually running with him.

And then her body really started to give way. Arthritis started to eat at her hips, making it difficult for Charlie to even get out of her bed. She started to have accidents in the house. Many times her spirit was willing to walk and play even as her body wasn't following all the time. She had a lot of good days, but bad times were starting to more frequently punctuate the hours. She rarely wagged her tail.

Finally, last week, Charlie had more bad days than good. We couldn't ignore that she was at a point where she would be suffering if we didn't make a decision. We called the vet and made an appointment and had the kids say good-bye.

The room was prepared with a blanket on the floor when we arrived, and the veterinary assistant explained the procedure. They took Charlie in the back to insert a catheter in her front leg and then brought her back to us. We requested a few moments alone with her and lay on the blanket with Charlie between us, petting her so she knew through our touch how much we loved her.

The time passed too quickly before the vet and her assistant returned, but it was quick and painless as promised. Charlie passed away quietly while we held her and we stayed with her for a several minutes after she was gone.

I miss her already. Home is strange without her, and Spike feels it, too.

Missing her will get less painful, I know, and we have 14-1/2 years of good memories to keep; like the time she tried to "protect" us from a snowman the first time she saw one, when she tried to follow a squirrel up a tree and we had to help her down, when she discovered a nest of bunnies in our backyard and tried to pick one up only to drop it and run with her tail between her legs because the bunny started squirming, or the way she would sit by us and had to touch us, even if it was just the edge of her leg brushing our foot.

I'm grateful for those memories and ready to enjoy the next decade or more with Spike even though I think forward, knowing the decision we'll have to make for him, too.