October started off real rough. Charlie our old Golden Retriever mixed Springer Spinal had been having some health problems starting months and months ago.

It was around December 2019 that we discovered he had a horrible ear infection. We honestly thought the nasty smell we had been smelling was due to him stepping in or rolling in cow poop. That was one of his favorite things to do. We started cleaning the ear at home first before taking him to the vet and eventually we had to take him around the start of summer because nothing seemed to be helping him and he started to not eat due to the pain he was having in his jaw from the pressure from the ear infection. He was put on some medication and some special ear cleaner and drops which all seemed to help so much but then boom it stopped working. After a couple of months we took him back in around the end of August to see if the infection had gotten better and it hadn’t. He now had a yeast infection growing in the ear and from my understanding they are very hard to get rid of. The vet had cleaned his ear out really, really good and shaved the area around the ear to help it drain and get some air in to dry it out. Moister is a bad thing to have when trying to beat an ear infection. He was also prescribed new medication and a new ear cleaner and we started all over.

Well things didn’t get better. Charlies ear may have been getting better but Charlie wasn’t. I truly believe there was another health concern that was happening in his body. He had some tumors all over his body and one was on his back that was really large. We think that could have had something to do with what was going on with him. At the end of September he stopped eating, was very lethargic, and looked absolute miserable. He didn’t socialize with Wanda or the cats and not even us. He didn’t like getting love anymore or snuggles which BROKE my heart. As we entered October he hadn’t eaten for almost two weeks and he started to not drink water, that was a big sign for me. I was and still feel like the bad guy fro bringing up having Charlie put down. It broke my heart to have to bring it up and have that conversation with Timothy. We decided to change his diet and really work hard on getting him to eat the mash in small amounts and drink water but nothing worked. The next couple of days were even tougher and he started barfing up phlegm and he was struggling to breath. Like most of us do I googled all the symptoms Charlie was having and it said he was actively dying and I was crushed! Timothy and I had that talk again and on Friday October 2nd we decided to make the toughest choice but the best choice so Charlie didn’t have to suffer in so much pain. We had him put down.

I thought watching Rocky the farm dog that we got to love for two year was

away was tough my God watching a dog I have loved for 12 years, who was my best friend, who had been my best buddy for all 3 of my pregnancies, and who was with me during the toughest time of my life. He was my biggest supporter during my fight to get my life back from my eating disorder.

Ill always remember Charlie and love him forever.

~God Bless

Angela