By Jacob Geers From Care2

If you’re ready to have your heart melt, you need to meet a golden retriever named Charlie and his new best friend.

Charlie’s family — who lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, before moving to Mooresville, North Carolina — has had him since he was a puppy, NBC Philadelphia reports. As he got older, Charlie started experiencing pain in his left eye. His fur-parents Chelsea and Adam Stipe took Charlie to a veterinarian, who determined he had glaucoma and needed his eye removed.

Sadly, about a year later, Charlie began experiencing similar pain and vision loss in his right eye. That eye also had to be removed, leaving Charlie completely blind.

His family emptied their retirement savings to get the procedures done.

“For us it was a no-brainer, empty our retirement plan to care for this dog because he makes us happy,” Chelsea Stipe told NBC Philadelphia.

Charlie, who’s now 11 years old, still had plenty of energy and love to give after those procedures. But sometimes he struggled to interact with a world he couldn’t see.

That all started to change on New Year’s Day 2019, when Chelsea and Adam got a new puppy. They had always wanted two dogs. And with Chelsea pregnant, they hoped their child could “grow up with” this new pup.

Charlie and new puppy Maverick were not immediately friends. Charlie wasn’t sure who this new dog was, and Maverick realized that something was amiss with Charlie. But as they grew to know each other, Maverick began filling an unexpected role in the house. He became Charlie’s seeing-eye dog.

“When they would play, Maverick would realize that Charlie would lose the toy sometimes, so (Maverick) would pick it up and put it back in front of him to re-engage playtime,” Chelsea told NBC Philadelphia.

And when explaining how Maverick walks alongside Charlie to support him, Chelsea said, “They almost turn into little sled dogs where they’ll walk together.”

Charlie and Maverick’s incredible bond is now going viral across the internet. Chelsea submitted her two pups to the WeRateDogs social media account, and promotion there led to hundreds of thousands of likes. And she set up an Instagram account for the dogs.

“Everything has just been so positive and loving,” Chelsea told NBC Philadelphia.

But really, nothing is more positive and loving than the bond between these amazing pups.

Photo credit: FatCamera/Getty Images

For more on this story go to: https://www.care2.com/causes/this-blind-dog-has-his-own-seeing-eye-pup-and-its-a-heart-melting-relationship.html