When people spot Morgan Hanlon driving his truck for work, they know his faithful companion Charlie will be by his side. For the past three years, the loyal border collie has travelled with her devoted owner around the country as he delivers feed to farms, and he says the journeys are far more enjoyable now that he has his canine pal to keep him company.
Morgan decided to get a dog after the break-up of a two-year relationship, which left him completely devastated. While he is normally a positive, happy person, he was so upset he wasn’t sleeping or eating. “My head was gone,” he admits. “I tried everything to get over it but I was on my last legs. I was going down a dark road.”
Morgan (33) drives for Southern Milling Ltd. and he found that as he was driving along, he was thinking constantly about the situation. and it was going around in his head for a year and a half.
He knew his parents were worried about him, as was his identical twin brother Luke, which made him feel worse.
Morgan has always been an animal-lover and can’t understand how people can be cruel to animals. His family has a lovely 13-year-old collie/springer spaniel cross dog called Freeway, and in an effort to make himself feel better, Morgan, who lives with his family, decided to ask his parents if he could get a puppy.
They agreed and he started on the process of looking for a dog the following day – ethically and ensuring that he wasn’t choosing one from a puppy farm – and he found a litter of three-month-old border collies for sale from a Wexford farm. He is grateful that his friend drove him there, even though he had to drive to Dublin to go on holidays the next day. When they arrived at the farm to see the puppies, Charlie came up to Morgan. She was really gentle and he knew she was the dog for him.
“I brought her home and we haven’t looked back since,” he says. “I knew then that I couldn’t look back and had to keep going for Charlie.”
Taking care of a small puppy is all-consuming, and Morgan says that the love and affection Charlie showed to him started the healing process for him. He adores her and she shows him huge love and affection, and keeps him calm and brings him great happiness. She is also a very well-behaved and happy little dog, and he now has a tattoo of her on his arm.
“I’ve learned so much from Charlie, like having patience on the road,” he laughs. “If I blast another driver, she’ll give out to me, which is so funny, and I have met so many people through her and have had great conversations with them.”
Morgan is grateful to his employers, who have been so kind and supportive to him all through the challenges of the past few years. “The farmers are brilliant too and a lot of them will leave me go up the field and walk Charlie,” he says. “Sometimes she will play with other dogs on the farm too. She loves going in the truck with me.”
Morgan says that life is great again for him and he puts it down to the happiness his lovely dog brings him and the great company they are for each other.
“The pain I went through over the break-up was the hardest thing I went through in my life, but it was worth it to get Charlie,” he says. “She brought me back to myself.”
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