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Carlie 2/15/2000-7/12/2014


Olivia
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Around the middle of this past July I said goodbye to one of the best dogs I've ever known. Carlie was known by many names, Carlie-Dog, Carlie Bug, Carlie Grace, Sweetest Sweetpea, and many more. She lived in 3 states and 10 different residences with me. She was with me through undergrad and graduate school; she was there when I got married and then divorced; as well as countless days of laughter and some days of tears. There was nothing I ever asked her to do that she did not excel at, obedience, disc dog, agility, and therapy dog; though she was never happier than when working sheep. She was the dog that introduced me to the wonderful, humbling and beautiful world of talented sheepdogs. She was endlessly patient with everyone, from babies to the elderly, and had the most stable temperament I've ever seen. I am so grateful we got to share 14.5 years together. Run free my girl.

 

Carlie on the day I got her. 12 weeks old and her ears never changed!

 

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Keeping watch over a young dog learning to work.

 

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This was taken 2 days before a bilateral FHO surgery at 7 years old. She officially retired from competition that day but was back in the agility ring 6 months later and showed for another year before deciding that she was ready to take it a bit easier and just do sheepwork.

 

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The last afternoon we had together. Her best friend came to sit with us and she moved enough to lay her head on his front legs. He lay still and watched over her as they had always watched over each other.

 

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A wonderful tribute to a wonderful partnership...Carlie's spirit will live forever inside you.

 

Run Free at the Bridge Carlie...

There are various places within which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else.

For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost -- if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.

If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call -- come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they should not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there.

People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.

The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.

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Wonderful photo tribute to your faithful friend. May she rest in peace.

 

We have a small polished/engraved river stone for every pet - cat, dog, goldfish, gerbil, hedgehog, etc - which I keep in my house on a hall table in a big glass bowl. It is quite full - over the years we have had a lot of pets, each one cherished, each one mourned, each one remembered from time to time in our stories.

 

Sometimes at Christmas we do the thing where everyone pulls out a stone, without looking, and has to tell a story about that pet. I always get a goldfish or some such :(

 

We have a few pets who hold special places, we had them so long or they were so special in some way that they became a part of the very fabric of our family - the ones who still make a fond tear come to your eye when you think of them. Carlie is one of those for you and I am happy for you that you have that.

 

As we say here, when we lay a dog to rest, "That'll do, Carlie."

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