Jennifer Garner’s nine-year-old Golden Retriever, Birdie, has passed away, as announced by the actress on her Instagram on November 27.
The award-winning actress shared the news with an emotional Instagram post. “It is hard to know how to write this— it seems nuts, given the world, to mourn a pet, but since we have shared Birdie with all of you, it only seems fair to let you know of her passing.” she wrote.
Garner explains that they brought nine-year-old pooch to the vet on Thursday, because “she wasn’t feeling herself (a renowned foodie, Birdie never missed a meal)”.
“We were surprised to learn that, not only was she very ill, she was at the end of her life.”
Garner also shared that Birdie “hanged on” until her person, Garner’s daughter with Ben Affleck, Violet Affleck, came home from college for Thanksgiving.
“The vet told us that dogs often hang on until their person comes home from college and we believe Birdie did just that, so that we could pet her soft ears together and thank her for being the world’s best dog,” Garner shares.
In her life, Birdie has shared a YouTube show with Garner called “Books with Birdie” because she loved being read to.
She also found her way into Garner’s other YouTube show called “Pretend Cooking Show”.
Aside from being a YouTuber, Garner and Birdie were featured in WeRateDogs’ YouTube show, ‘WeWalkDogs’, where the actress revealed that the pooch became a therapy dog at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
In their episode of ‘WeWalkDogs’, Garner reveled that Birdie was a gift to Violet for her 10th birthday.
“My eldest was 2 and decided she needed her own dog, and she talked about it all the time,” the actress reveals.
“And I said, ‘When you’re 10, that’s the age that one might get their own dog.’ I thought she’d forget because she was just 2. But now we have Birdie.”
Garner wrote, “She lived a happy dog life and is now in the role she was born to play: angel girl.”
Garner ended her emotional post for Birdie with, “It’s a gift to love and be loved by such a creature as Birdie the Doggie.”
The Instagram post included some of the best moments of Birdie during her life. Moments where she was being read to, sang to, and her admiring a stained glass window in their home with her in it.