Thank you to everyone who has commiserated, mostly off-blog. Millie was a big part of my life and I can remember hundreds of time when she was around, partipating or otherwise. I hate the end of this era. I don't believe in puppy heaven either.

Millie's deafness in her last year meant she looked to Charlie for cues on when to eat her dinner (they were both very good dogs, uncommon in beagles, when it came to getting the nod to eat). What I didn't realise until today was that Charlie looked to Millie for cues too. I often threw a bit of dry food up the back of the garden when I fed them, and Millie was always utterly attentive to where that went and would race off with Charlie. Today I discovered that Charlie was completely looking to Millie for cues on that. She had no idea what I was doing.

I realise it might be a good time now to train Charlie to do things (we were a bit lazy about this as Millie was so obedient and Charlie was being led, but also, it was very hard to train Charlie with Millie distracting her). Considering Charlie is a bit of a barrel, it's strange to note that she is not particularly food oriented, and probably wouldn't do much for food.