Charlie

We are so grateful to Gary & Wendy for adopting senior dog, Charlie, and giving him the loving and caring final years that he deserves. It is lovely to continue to see him and to watch as he has got happier and healthier, all through the kindness of Wendy, Gary and the lovely Lola.

Charlie is a German Shepherd found wandering near Gorron on 2nd August 2017, very thin and dirty. He didn’t have any identification at all, simply a collar with some electrical cable attached. Anita brought him back to Grande Daze and tried, in vain, to find his owner. There was no way of finding out his age and he seemed very old due to the state he was in.

Once he had been cleaned up, he was thought to be about 9 and his given birthday is the day he was found, which makes him 10 now.

We don’t think he was mistreated as he isn’t fearful, he was just very sad so he may have been just abandoned or lost. We thought he would probably only have one winter left and wanted to make it a comfortable one for him. We knew we could give him a home for however long he had and set about getting to know him, visiting him and walking him around the lake at Grande Daze along with Lola, our other German Shepherd.

On 15th September 2017, we brought him home – it would have been sooner except that our village fete was the previous weekend and they have fireworks on the river outside our house, so we didn’t know how he would react.

Lola was very caring and respectful, allowing him to eat first, and laying near enough to him but giving him space. He soon fitted in to our daily routine and after a few months he started filling out and getting more confident. He doesn’t attempt to go upstairs, but each morning he barks upstairs to tell us it is time to get up and if you say “Where’s Charlie?” he barks to let you know he is waiting!

He has put on a few kilos and filled out a bit but, as he is an old boy, we never expected miracles. He runs, plays and enjoys his walks, so that is our reward – along with the cuddles he asks for on a regular basis!

Although it would be wrong to say it has been plain sailing (he had an operation for a hole in his cornea as well as a stroke), Charlie has enriched our lives and it is hard to imagine life without him. We will certainly be celebrating his first anniversary on 15th September and hope to have a few more years with him yet!

We couldn’t have done it without the help and assistance of Anita and Peter who were always on call when Charlie had a problem or we weren’t sure what to do when he had a bad spell, so this is a BIG Thank You to them.