Millie & Max*

Millie & Max

Ages 9+

By Ruby Chan & Lacey Campbell

A true story based on 2 dog’s friendship 

Millie: 2007 - 2021

Max: 2007 - 2017

Millie and Max were only born 2 days apart. Millie was the older one. They were both bought on different days, but from the same shop. A smelly little dog shop in the city that has now shut down. Millie was bought by a woman named Bree and Max was bought by a man named John.

  2 Years after they were both bought, Bree’s sister got married to John. Soon after, Bree had to leave to return to her home country and left Millie behind with her sister Cheril. So, Millie and Max had become siblings.

  Very quickly, Max began to care for Millie and protect her. Millie was nice to Max, but also the boss of him. Millie and Max had the strongest of all bonds, and they loved each other more than they loved themselves.

  Millie would sit and sleep on top of Max, they shared a giant bed and a huge blanket. The fluffy bedding just wasn’t as comfortable as sitting on top of Max. As Millie thought. Max protected Millie from the neighbours cats, and even harmless little pigeons. Millie and Max wouldn’t go anywhere without each other. They would sit on the side of the house and sleep together all day in the sun.

  They did that for years. Until one day, Max had gotten a kidney disease. And he started having terrible diarrhoea. He would be in pain each day. But Millie looked after him, as he did to her in the past. Millie knew Max was struggling but tried to keep him happy for as long as she could. A year later, Chreril and John decided Max shouldn’t be in pain any longer. So on a hot sunny afternoon, Max was put to sleep forever and turned into tiny grains of sand.

  Cheril and John buried him in his favourite park he played in when he was young. When he was happy and young, he played ball with Millie, although Millie wasn’t as fast at running, Max would occasionally let her win.

  Days after Max had been put to sleep, Millie was looking for him. She would search everywhere. She dug holes in the ground to find him, she put his favourite toys next to the house where they slept. She didn’t understand where he had gone. She didn’t know he had left her. Or she just didn’t want to accept it. Day and night Millie would search and search. But she never found him, and eventually she gave up…

  But not entirely, she still slept next to the house everyday curled up next to his toys. She slept there day and night. Looking up and the pale blue sky, waiting every single day for Max to come home. But he never did. Millie soon learnt what had happened to him, but she wouldn’t accept it. She still slept every day in the hot sun next to the house. Waiting, waiting, waiting…

  Oneday, she was diagnosed with cancer. And got extremely ill. She couldn’t eat anymore and needed a tube to insert food through her body, when she tried to walk she would collapse and almost pass out. She was in pain for a whole year, but she still waited for Max. The vet said they could do a surgery that could potentially save her, but it will put her in excruciating pain and she might die. Cheril and John decided not to risk it. Instead, they both  treated Millie well, so that she could spend the last days of her life happily and peacefully.

  So, on a sunny Saturday afternoon. They put her to sleep, now she is in heaven with Max. And they are happily reunited and best friends again…

                  The End!