What My Dog Taught Me About Jesus
My dog died yesterday.
That sentence doesn’t capture it. Charlie: my companion of 13 years, my support dog, my community’s mascot, is gone. And I’m the one who made the decision to end his life.
“Do everything in love.” 1 Corinthians 16:14
In my Bible reading, the day before I put him down, and it felt almost cruel. Put your dog down in love? Say goodbye, kill him, but do it in love? Murder your dog, but do it in love?
I know that sounds over-dramatic, but that’s how it felt. How it still feels.
The Last 24 Hours
Charlie had six seizures in eight days. The last 24 hours of his life, he had five of them. One at 1 PM. Another at 6:30 PM. Another at 11:30 PM. Then one at 10 AM while we were putting him in the car to take him to the vet.
It was an hour-long drive, and we had to stop three times to help him be comfortable. When we got to the vet, they took him to the back to put a port in. I could hear him scream. I knew it was him. They brought him back on a stretcher because he’d had another seizure while they were trying to help him.
He was put down at 12:30 PM.
In tears, I left thinking I had killed my dog. It was-and still is quite painful. Every cell in my body is screaming. My head hurts. My eyes can’t focus. Brokenhearted seems like too small a word for what I’m feeling.
Who Charlie Was
Charlie was the most gentle dog you would ever meet. I live in a retirement community, and everyone who met him loved him. There was even a lady here who didn’t want me to move next to her because she was afraid of dogs. I waited for another apartment to open up so she would be okay. Five years later, she loves Charlie. She bought him treats and smiled every time our paths crossed. That’s how gentle in spirit he was. He never scared anyone. They felt his peace when he came by.
When we first moved here, Charlie wasn’t sure about all these people either. We’d lived in a single-family house with a big yard and front porch. He had space to roam. But as he got used to the comings and goings of apartment life, he came to love the pets and the treats. He truly became the community’s mascot. If you lived in this building, you knew Charlie.
We walked three to four times a day, and he was always known for having a ball in his mouth. Residents loved watching him play outside their windows. He was always in good physical shape. He was well-loved.
We’re supposed to have leashes on at all times, but with Charlie, I took it off when we were playing or when it was safe for him to run up to people. They loved it. He had his favorites and always ran up to them for a good petting time or a treat.
What Charlie Did For Me
But Charlie wasn’t just the community’s dog. He was my support dog. I’m an introvert: a really big one. Charlie kept me socializing and kept me moving. He gave me a reason to leave the apartment multiple times a day. He gave me natural conversations with neighbors. He made the world feel safer.
He had a way of talking to me with those deep brown eyes, telling me what he needed. Sometimes he wanted food, sometimes exercise, sometimes to relieve himself, sometimes to play. We had a communication. And if I didn’t want to go out, he was patient. I’d say “lay down” and he would. Then he’d come back 15 minutes later and ask again.
He did whatever I wanted, even when he didn’t want to. I had to put little booties on him on super cold winter days. He didn’t like them, but he tolerated them for me. That’s how he lived. He tolerated what he didn’t like for me. And he encouraged me to go when I didn’t want to.
What Love Really Means
The vet told me those seizures were Charlie’s body shutting down. His body was saying, “I’m done.”
But here’s what I realized the day after he died: that submissive, gentle dog looked at me during those 24 hours and said, “No. I’m not doing that to her. I’m going to live.”
For 24 hours after his body started failing, he paced. He paced so hard, he ran into walls and doors. I would try to hold him and he let me for a moment, but then he would run some more. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t rest between seizures. He fought to stay alive. I think what he was trying to keep moving, so he could live. His aggressive movement kept him going, and somehow he knew he knew he couldn’t stop. Not until I finally forced him to at the vet yesterday.
That’s what love was for him. Sacrifice. He wasn’t going to give up on me.
And that’s when I saw it: really saw what Jesus did for us.
Silent Before Pilate
Jesus didn’t yell at Pilate. He didn’t defend Himself or fight back. He just let Pilate talk, and Jesus quietly submitted. He sacrificed His life for us without a fight. He didn’t try to save Himself, because He loved us more than He loved His own life.
I see Charlie in that same way. That gentle, submissive spirit that didn’t fight against what I needed or wanted him to do. Even when it cost him everything he kept moving. He kept fighting to stay alive and with me as long as possible, until his body simply couldn’t anymore.
Love is sacrifice. Not the easy kind, not the romantic kind, but the kind that costs everything. The kind that keeps moving even when your body is shutting down. The kind that submits quietly because you love someone more than you love your own comfort, your own safety, your own life.
Charlie sacrificed his will for me every single day. Whatever I wanted him to do, even if he didn’t want to, he did it quietly and without fight. And in those final 24 hours, he sacrificed his rest, his peace, his body’s desperate need to shut down. All so he wouldn’t leave me one moment before he absolutely had to.
Jesus doesn’t give up on us either. He walked to the cross even when His body and soul were crying out to stop. He loved us through the sacrifice.
And Charlie loved me the same way.
Do Everything in Love
So yes, I put my dog down yesterday. And yes, I did it in love. The most painful, sacrificial, broken-hearted love I’ve ever had to give. The kind of love that cost me everything emotionally because it was what he needed, even though it shattered me.
That’s what “do everything in love” means. Not that love makes things easy or painless or comfortable. But that love gives everything, even when it costs us more than we think we can bear.
Charlie taught me that. And through Charlie, God showed me a glimpse of what Jesus did for me on the cross.
I’m still grieving. Every cell in my body is still screaming. The apartment is too quiet. There are no brown eyes watching me, no gentle insistence that it’s time to go outside, no one at my feet bringing peace just by being present.
But I know what love means now. And I know that the decision I made yesterday—as painful and heartbreaking as it was, was love. Sacrificial, costly, everything-I-had-to-give love.
Just like Jesus.
Rest well, Charlie. You taught me more about the heart of God than you’ll ever know.
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