Holistic Pet Approved Facebook ad: “I told myself Charlie was grieving my father.”

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I sit in my father's rocking chair on my back porch most mornings now, and my dog Charlie sits next to it. I say my dog Charlie. He was my father's dog first. My father passed two years ago from a slow cancer. I brought his rocking chair home from his house after the funeral. I brought Charlie home too. He was six years old then. He is eight now. I have been sitting in that rocking chair with Charlie next to it every morning for two years, and for two years I have been telling myself that Charlie is grieving my father, and that I am the wrong person for him. I want to write this down because I was wrong on both counts, and it took my father's old friend Hal coming by for a visit last spring to help me see it. Let me back up. I am forty-four. My father, Bill, was seventy-nine when he died. He had been widowed for eight years by then. My mother had passed young. When my mother died, my father did what a lot of men his age do after they lose their wives. He got a dog. He drove three counties over to a Lab breeder in the spring after my mother's funeral and he came home with a yellow puppy he called Charlie. Charlie was the shape of my father's last eight years. My father lived alone in his house. He was retired from thirty-eight years as a high school math teacher. His day, when Charlie came into it, was: Six-thirty AM, coffee on the back porch in his rocking chair. Charlie on the porch floor next to the rocker. Seven-thirty, breakfast at the kitchen table. Charlie under the table with his chin on my father's foot. Nine, mail. Charlie at the mailbox with him at the end of the driveway, then back to the porch. Ten, my father read the newspaper on the porch. Charlie on the floor next to the rocker. Noon, sandwich for lunch. Charlie under the table. Two PM, nap on the couch in the living room. Charlie on the rug next to the couch. Four, slow walk down the road to the county line marker and back. Charlie at his heel. Five, feeding time in the kitchen. Charlie inhaled his bowl in seven seconds. Six, dinner at the kitchen table, alone, with the small television in the corner turned to the local news. Charlie under the table. Nine, bed. Charlie went upstairs behind him and slept on a folded blanket at the foot of his bed. That was the shape of my father's day for eight years, and it was the same day, more or less, every day, until the last three months of his life when the cancer made it different. In the last three months, my father moved to a hospital bed in his living room. Charlie moved his folded blanket to the floor next to that bed. When my father was awake, Charlie's head was on the hospital bed rail. When my father was asleep, Charlie's chin was on the mattress. My father died in that hospital bed on a Tuesday morning in October two years ago. Charlie was on the rug next to the bed when it happened. Hal was there. I was there. The next day I loaded the rocking chair from the porch into the back of my Subaru and I clipped Charlie to a leash and I drove him home. He rode in the passenger seat and looked out the window the whole way and did not lie down. We got to my house at dusk. I set up a dog bed in the corner of my living room. I put out a water bowl and a food bowl in the kitchen. I sat with Charlie on my couch for a while and I said, "Buddy, I know this is not what you knew. But this is home now." He wagged his tail once and lay down at my feet. I want to be honest. I am not the person my father was. My father was seventy-nine and retired and had all day to sit on a porch with a dog. I am forty-four and I work as a paralegal at a small law firm in town. I leave the house at eight in the morning most weekdays. I get home at six-thirty. My house is smaller than my father's. My back porch is smaller. I do not have a country road to walk a dog down to a county line marker. I tried to give Charlie a version of the life he had. I put the rocking chair on my back porch and I sat in it with him on weekend mornings. I fed him at five PM every day the way my father had. I walked him around my neighborhood in the evenings. But my days were not my father's days. When I left for work at eight, Charlie went into a house that was quiet until six-thirty. When I came home, we had two and a half hours before dinner and bed. My weekends I tried to give him fully, but weekends are only two days. For two years I watched Charlie stay quiet. He was not miserable. He was not sick. His vet, Doctor Sarah Martinez, checked him every six months and told me his weight was fine, his bloodwork was fine, his fecals were clean. He was just quiet. In the corner of my living room. On the rug next to my couch. On the porch floor next to my father's rocking chair. I told myself he was grieving my father, and that I was not the person to bring him out of it. I want to say something about that self-blame. When you inherit a dog from someone you loved who is gone, and the dog is quiet, you have a story right there ready to explain it. He is grieving. He misses him. He would rather be back on that country porch than here in this smaller house with the wrong person feeding him at five. I told myself that story for twenty-three months. Then Hal came by last April. Hal was my father's oldest friend. Hal is eighty-one. He was a chemistry teacher at the same high school where my father taught math, and they had known each other for over fifty years. Hal has a yellow Lab of his own, Cooper, who is nine. Hal had come by my house a few times in the two years after my father died, but not often. He lives forty miles away and he does not drive as much anymore. That April Sunday he called me at nine in the morning and said he was in the area for a christening and could he stop by for coffee for an hour. I said yes. He pulled up in his old Buick around ten and Cooper got out of the passenger seat and trotted right up my front walk to me. Hal came up behind Cooper, using a cane now, which was newer than the last time I had seen him. He said, "Anne. Where is Charlie." I said, "On the porch. In the rocker's spot." Hal walked through my house to the back porch. Cooper followed him. Charlie was on the porch floor next to my father's rocking chair, in the spot he had lain in every morning for two years. Cooper walked over to Charlie and pushed his nose into Charlie's shoulder in the way one Lab greets another. Charlie wagged his tail from the floor but did not get up. Hal stood at the porch door for a minute watching the two of them. Then he sat down in the rocker very carefully, the way an eighty-one-year-old sits down in a rocker, and he leaned forward and he put his hand on Charlie's head. He said, "Charlie." Charlie thumped his tail three times against the porch floor. Hal looked up at me. He said, "Anne. Come sit." I sat down on the porch step. Hal said, "How long has Charlie been like this." I said, "Since he came home with me. Two years." Hal said, "That is what I thought." I said, "I have been telling myself he is grieving Dad. And that I am not the right person for him." Hal was quiet for a minute. He looked at Cooper, who was lying next to Charlie now. Then Hal said, "Anne. I want to say two things. The first thing I want to say is that you were a good daughter to your father, and you are a good daughter to Charlie. Whatever is wrong with Charlie is not that you are not your father. Your father would be the first person to tell you that." He said, "The second thing I want to say is what you are watching in Charlie may not be grief. Cooper went through what Charlie is going through. Not because he lost anyone. But because there is a category of dog condition that looks like this and it is not what you or the vet think it is." I said, "What." Hal said, "I want to say this first. I am a retired chemistry teacher. I am not a vet. Take what I am about to say to Doctor Martinez and ask her plainly if it is a sensible thing to add for Charlie. If she says yes, add it. If she says no, do not." I nodded. Hal said, "There is a supplement I added to Cooper's food three years ago. Called Turkey Tail Probiotic Plus. Company called Lumiqour. Mushroom-and-probiotic supplement. It supports the immune and gut side of what a dog's body does to keep parasites in check on top of what dewormers do." He said, "There is a mechanism where certain parasites hide in a layer that dewormers cannot fully reach, and this supplement supports the immune function that gets past that layer. The reason it matters in a case like Cooper's, and possibly Charlie's, is that a fecal float will read clean when there is a lot going on underneath. Your dog is on prevention, his fecals are clean, but something is affecting him that the fecals do not catch." He said, "I called Cooper's vet before I gave him anything. I gave her the brand name. I asked her plainly if it was a sensible thing to add. She looked at the ingredients and said yes." He said, "It took a few weeks. But somewhere in the fifth or sixth week, Cooper came back to me on the porch in the evenings the way he had not for a year." He said, "That is why he is nine and he is on your back porch right now with his nose on Charlie's shoulder." Hal reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small notebook. He tore out a page and wrote the name on it. Turkey Tail Probiotic Plus. Lumiqour. He handed it to me. He said, "Anne. Charlie is not grieving your father. He might be. But if he is only grieving your father, he would have come out of it by now. Something else is going on in his body. Call Doctor Martinez and ask her about this." He said, "And listen to me on the other thing. You were a good daughter to your father, and you are a good keeper of your father's dog. Whatever is happening to Charlie is not because of you." I sat on the porch step and I cried for a minute. Hal did not say anything. He just sat in my father's rocking chair with his hand on Charlie's head. Monday morning I called Doctor Martinez. I gave her the brand name. I said, "Hal, who is Dad's old friend, uses this for his Lab. Would this be sensible to add to what Charlie is on." Doctor Martinez said, "Give me a day and let me look at the ingredients." She called me back Tuesday afternoon. She said, "Anne. The ingredients are Turkey Tail extract paired with Lactobacillus acidophilus in stated dosages. That is a real mechanism in integrative veterinary medicine. It supports the immune and gut side of parasite management alongside dewormers. It will not interfere with Charlie's prevention or his food. It is a sensible thing to add. Four to six weeks before you make any judgment." I ordered a bottle that afternoon. It came on a Friday. Saturday morning I sat in my father's rocking chair on the back porch with my coffee and I opened the bottle and I put a capsule in Charlie's kibble in the kitchen and mixed it around. He ate everything and did not notice. I did not tell Hal. I did not want anyone waiting to see. Weeks one and two, nothing changed. Charlie was on the porch floor next to the rocker. Somewhere in the third week I noticed he had stopped grazing on our evening walks. I had not consciously registered how much grass he had been eating in the strip between my yard and the sidewalk. That week he walked past his usual grazing spot without stopping. The next week his stool firmed up. Which I noticed picking up in the yard. It had been softer than it should be for a long time. Week five, I came into the kitchen at six-thirty PM from work on a Tuesday, and Charlie was in the kitchen. He was not in the corner of the living room where he had been for two years when I came home. He was in the kitchen. Standing by the counter. Looking at me. I stood in the doorway with my work bag on my shoulder and I did not move. I said, "Buddy." He wagged his tail. Not a big wag. A wag. I set the bag down and I sat on the kitchen floor and I put my arms around his neck and I cried into his coat for the second time in a month. Week seven, Charlie was on the front porch waiting when I pulled into the driveway from work. Week nine, Charlie brought me a rope toy from the box of toys I had bought him two years ago that he had never touched. He came into my home office where I was working from home that Friday afternoon, and he dropped the rope toy at my feet, and he stood there looking at me. I looked down at the toy. I looked up at him. I said, "Charlie. You have never touched that toy." He wagged his tail. I got up from my desk and I tugged on the rope with him for about ten minutes. He was not a young dog. He got tired. But he tugged. Charlie is nine now. It has been eight months. He greets me at the front door when I come home from work. He is in the kitchen at five PM when I feed him. He brings me the rope toy on some Friday afternoons when I am working from home. He is not the dog my father had. He never will be, because he is not on that country porch in that country house with that country road to walk down to that county line marker. But he is Charlie. In my house. In my life. Awake in it. Present in it. His fecals are still clean. His bloodwork is what it was. Doctor Martinez said at his last visit, "Anne. Whatever you added is working for him. Keep it up." I told her plainly what we added. She wrote it down. I want to tell you what came back and what did not. His tests did not really change. They had been fine before. They were fine after. What came back was the dog. The wag in the kitchen at six-thirty. The rope toy in my home office. The nose against my leg when I sit on the back porch with my coffee. The trot to the driveway when I pull in from work. The dog behind the quiet. I do not know for sure it was the capsule. Nobody could tell you that for sure. I only know that I told myself for two years that Charlie was grieving my father and that I was not the person to bring him back. And Hal sat in my father's rocking chair on a Sunday morning and told me neither of those things was necessarily true. And I called Doctor Martinez, and I added the one thing. And somewhere in the fifth week, Charlie came into the kitchen at six-thirty on a Tuesday. That is the honest version. It is the only one I have. If you have inherited a dog from someone you loved, and the dog has been quiet, and you have been telling yourself the dog is grieving that person and that you are the wrong person to bring the dog out of it, I want to tell you what Hal told me on my back porch in April. Talk to your vet first. Plainly. Give her the brand name Turkey Tail Probiotic Plus, from Lumiqour. Ask her if it is a sensible thing to add to what your dog is already on. If she says yes, and there is a fair chance she will, one capsule with a meal each morning. Change nothing else. Just add it. Then give it a few weeks. Do not hover over him waiting. Just add it, and let his body keep its own time. And be tender with him. And with yourself. He has not left. He has just gotten quiet. You can read the five things I read about Turkey Tail Probiotic Plus, in plain writing, here: https://learn.lumiqour.com/5-reasons-turkeytail-parasites That is what my father's oldest friend on a Sunday morning in April, and a phone call to Doctor Martinez, and one capsule in a rocking-chair Lab's kibble, between them did for Charlie. And I would be a poor sort of daughter and a poor sort of dog keeper if I did not pass it on to somebody else who is sitting in an inherited rocking chair with an inherited dog and telling themselves the wrong story about why the dog has stayed quiet. P.S. Hal came back for a whole weekend last summer. He and Cooper stayed at my house. Cooper and Charlie slept together at the foot of the guest bed both nights. On the Saturday morning I made coffee for Hal and me on the back porch, and Cooper and Charlie lay on the porch floor next to the rocker together. Hal looked over at them and said, "Your father would like this." I said he would. P.P.S. I keep a spare bottle in the cupboard now. Lumiqour is a small company and they have run out of stock a couple of times, and I do not like to be near the last of it. I would rather it just be in the cupboard, next to the kibble bag. P.P.P.S. The instructions, in order, the way I would write them on a legal pad from my office: Talk to your vet first, ask if it is sensible to add. If yes, one capsule with a meal each day. Change nothing else. Just add it. Then give it a few weeks. Some dogs come back sooner. Some take longer. Some, honestly, not much at all. Be patient. And be tender. P.P.P.P.S. Turkey Tail Probiotic Plus comes with a ninety-day money-back guarantee. Not satisfied for any reason at all, every dollar back, no fuss. For a supplement you are going to try on a dog you love, that is the only sensible policy. Ninety days is enough time to actually tell, instead of deciding in a week. I would take all ninety. P.P.P.P.P.S. This is written for any dog, any breed. Charlie is a Lab because my father wanted a Lab after my mother died. Cooper is a Lab because Hal has always kept Labs. But the going-quiet after coming to live in a new house with a new person, and the story you tell yourself about why, do not care what breed a dog is. If your dog is doing this, and he was somebody else's dog before he was yours, this is written for you too.

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learn.lumiqour.com

I told myself Charlie was grieving my father.

What my father's oldest friend told me from my father's rocking chair.