Charlie's story - day 1

May 27, 2015

It seems odd to start writing now about Charlie because I haven’t met him yet. I don’t even know who he is or who he will be. Heck, I don’t even know if he is a he because he very well could be a she. I just know there is a Charlie and he (or she) is out there…waiting for us to find him.

To really tell you about Charlie’s story I would have to tell you about Shifu…and to really understand Shifu you would have to know about Jasper…and there would be no Jasper if there hadn’t been a Bear. So you see that to fully understand could take quite a while. Maybe someday I’ll tell you all their stories and how they fit together but today I am anxious to begin Charlie’s story. If only he would find me.

I knew that we needed a dog in our lives. It has been 2 months since we said goodbye to Shifu (who died of a brain tumor) and even though it breaks my heart to think about moving on, we have to. We have to have someone else to love and take care of.  Shifu saved our lives once, we need that miracle again.

Enter Charlie. Steinbeck wrote a great book called Travels with Charley about a cross country trip he made with his dog, Charley, where he reacquainted himself with America. One day a couple of weeks ago I was hit with the idea that we should get a dog named Charlie and write blog posts about travels with our Charlie. We love to travel and we’ve had so much fun taking all our dogs on the road with us that I'd love to do more of it. I mentioned the idea to T and he loved it too. So since we knew we wanted to travel with Charlie, it seemed that getting a small dog was in order. That was our first decision because before that we’d been all over the place about whether to get a small dog, like Shifu, or another Golden, like Jasper. But Goldens can’t fit under the airplane seat and we wouldn’t ever travel with a dog in the cargo hold. So a small dog it will be. But where will we find him? 

I’m so ready to be a family again.