Charlie never really seemed to mind when I said that.

Generally, there would be a few of my friends sitting around a fire or on the dock at the camp.

There would be an open bottle of Old Forester and thirty or forty cigarette butts scattered on the ground. An iPod would be playing in the background, generally low to begin and skull-jarring by midnight. Charlie would be stretched out on her side, ears flopped down, shaking mosquitos away and snorting when she heard something interesting.

Charlie was my constant companion.

The day she learned to “load up” in the back of my pickup was the proudest moment of my life. I’ve got three human children now, and nothing so far has touched it.

She was fair-to-middling on a dove field. Even a little proper training would have made her a phenom; she was a natural. But as a pet and companion, there was none better. When I wanted to go, she wanted to go. When I wanted to sit alone and read or sleep or sulk, she just stretched out at my feet.

She loved everyone and everyone loved her. If she had a character flaw, it was that she pilfered cat food from a 2-mile radius and would upend a trash can for half a Papa John’s pizza. But one shrill two-finger whistle brought her barreling back like she might be late for supper.

“She’s a bird dog,” my father always said. “I’ve never seen one that didn’t act like they were starving.”

She loved a tennis ball. She loved the River. She loved a shotgun. She’d dance when she saw a shotgun. That crazy dance where the body vibrates from back to front in no particular rhythm. Only Labs can do it.

She hated my guitar. Maybe that’s a sign.

She might have been an angel, sent to watch over me when I seemed to have no interest in doing so myself.

I got her in February 2001.

I was 25 years old, four months shy of 26, and she was 6 months old.

I had a full-time job, my own home, and absolutely no idea what it took to take care of myself… much less a puppy. I was nothing more than an overgrown frat boy; still starting the weekend on Thursday, struggling through Friday, running like a sailor on shore leave on Friday and Saturday, laying up on Sunday and Monday, and beginning to hit my stride again by Tuesday to do it all over again.

Charlie never judged.

She essentially housebroke herself and looked at me with eyes that said, “I love you. I love you no matter what. Don’t be stupid.”

More than once, she laid on the toolbox on the back of my truck, parked at the front door of the neighborhood bar, while I shot pool and drank whiskey and howled at the moon with the boys from six to eleven, or something like that.

We got older together and finally had to quit painting the town.

But we still had our thing.

When we’d set out for the camp, 90 miles southwest of my driveway, she knew where we were headed.

She loaded up in the front passenger seat and sat upright like a well-bred debutante. About one-third of the way there, she’d lay down with her front paws on the center console, facing me, staring with pure love while I belted out Hank Jr’s Habits Old and New album all the way from “Old Habits” to “If You Don’t Like Hank Williams,” with special emphasis on “Dinosaur” and “All in Alabama.”

When we got to the dirt road, she’d rear up and start paying attention. When I opened my truck door at the camp, she’d beat a circle around the yard, smelling what she’d missed in the last week and then beelining down the bank for a swim in the river.

I’d unload the truck, check the water pump, knock down spider webs, fix a drink, and then walk out on the deck. She’d walk up, shake water all over me, then lay at my feet while we took in the Gloaming—the sky to the west, directly across the river from the deck, a million hues of purple, orange, pink, and black.

By the time the sun had set, any doubts I had about my faith in God were distant, and I’d reach down, rub her ears gently, grin through the tears, and say,

“Thank you, Lord. Thank you for this moment right now. Thank you for letting us be here in your creation. Together. And while you’re there, if it’s not too much trouble, please save us both from me.”

Charlie died on March 10, 2013.

I wrote in my journal: “Charlie laid down on her bed beside my chair today and died. 12 years my best friend.”

Thank you, Charlie.

The years I got were more than I deserved.