Charlie's Story

In 2004, our older rescue Westie, Annabel, died of an operable tumor. Her best friend, our other Westie, Abbie, was grieving herself to death. We decided to find another friend for Abbie to love, and contacted Westie Rescue of Missouri. We didn't know that WRM had recently taken in a sweet little boy only 10 months old who needed a home badly. When Carolyn contacted us with the details about this boy, my husband was a bit hesitant because we hadn't had a boy dog before, nor had we had one this young.

But after talking with Carolyn by phone and emailing each other several times, we agreed to meet at the adoption fair being held Halloween weekend in St. Joseph, MO. We took Abbie with us, so she could see her potential new brother for herself. We made this an overnight trip so all of us would be rested and ready for meeting him, and for the long trip back home to Tennessee.

For me, it was love at first sight. Carolyn brought him out, he went right to my arms, and my heart was his. He won over my husband in short order, but Abbie took a while longer. She wasn't any too sure about this interloper, not at first. She delivered several sharp reprimands when he tried to get overly familiar, but she wasn't mean enough to discourage Charlie (as we called him).

By the time we arrived home, it was as if Charlie had been with us always. Even Abbie no longer minded Charlie's enthusiastic invitations to play, and Charlie himself slid right into our lives with hardly a ripple. He loves playing in the back yard, especially our first snowfall over Christmas. He did very well in the Basic Training class we took together, and is such a quick learner.

Charlie eased our grief over losing our beloved Annabel, and I think she would love him as much as we do.

UPDATE January 13, 2005

Today for the first time since our Annabel died, Jimmy laughed out loud. He laughed playing 'fetch' with Charlie. I can't tell you how much that means to me. Thank you for making it possible to have this little dog in our lives, because he's made my husband start to heal a bit from losing Annabel. Charlie is definitely a 'man's dog' though I can tell he likes us both. He really listens to Jimmy!