Charlie and Daisy are gone

I am writing this before Charlie and Daisy are gone, because I don't know when I'll be able write after they're gone. On Thursday June 9th at 12 noon Daisy and Charlie both were let go at the same time.

Charlie has been in a lot of pain for quite awhile - he's had arthritis, and every time he has gotten up I've wondered if it's the last time he was going to be able to get up. In the last few days Daisy's condition has deteriorated rapidly - she's almost completely lost the ability to walk and she's not wanting to eat, so she's ready to go - and I know that Charlie would have been lost without her - so I'm letting him go at the same time as her.

It has been such a blessing to have Charlie for the last 12 years, and to have had him long enough so that he has died of old age. There's not too many dogs who live with one person their whole life and go out the way he has.

I don't know if it makes his death easier. It makes it less tragic - he had a good, long life

He met a ton of dogs, he and I were so blessed to come into contact with almost all his brothers and sisters, and we even got to live with a couple of them - this was Philip, who later became Brodie.

And then there was Leonard who was the first love of Charlie's life - who I got with my husband when Leonard was 6 week's old, and led me to get Charlie from the SPCA when he was 3 months old. Leonard just died a couple months ago as well.

But I'd have to say that the major love in Charlie's life was Daisy. As soon as I got her in December 2003 it was love at first sight. For all of us.

Who wouldn't love the pure joy that Daisy gave us from the moment she came into our lives. Everyone who met her said how beautiful she was, that she was a special dog. She was a rottweiller with a gift.

It is a shame that rottweillers don't live to be old - when I said that she was 10 - and she really maybe almost made it to 11, everyone said that was rare - rottweillers don't get to be that old. And in the end, it has been hard for her - her back legs have stopped working, she has a couple of pretty large tumours, and she is ready to go.

We have all had such a fabulous life together these past almost 9 years.

This blog, and these 1,927 posts pays testament to that. It has all been played out here, literally. And I am so lucky for that - I can go back and live it all in here - there's not too many dogs who's lives have been so intimately documented as Charlie and Daisy's and Buttercups.

For each of the 10 or so photos in this blog post, I probably have at least 2,000 other pictures exactly like it, only slightly blurry and a bit shittier since I'm a shitty photographer, but they at least captured moments in the last 12 years, and I'm happy I did it now.

I know I've got to live through this somehow, and I am so glad that Buttercup is still here with me and she's still healthy. I am SO grateful for that.
Charlie were such good dogs. I don't know what I'm going to do without them