The Beginnings!!!

Our losing Rosie at the age of 13 reached deeper into our psyches than either Sheila or I would have imagined. Her death on our kitchen floor a week ago sent us into a tailspin emotionally that reached anguish levels for Sheila and had me repeatedly looking for Rosie throughout the house, especially as I came through the front door or as we were finishing a meal and had the last scrap allocated to our ever present friend and companion.

One of the fellows I work with has a yellow lab, two years of age that they wanted to give away to a good family. He refused to take any money for him despite the fact that he is a purebred with papers, tattoos, etc. His only proviso was that he and his wife be able, on occasion to come by and see how he was doing!!!

So our friend Sam brought his dog over yesterday. I'll say right off the bat that I get yellow labs and golden retrievers mixed up……… and did!!!!!!! In walks Parker, all 100 pounds of him at 2 years of age, tongue and tail wagging, happy to be anywhere humans and the prospect of food is/are!!!!! He made himself at home friendly as can be and did I say could smell food a half mile away. With brunch on the go, pancakes made and eggs in the making, coffee brewed and juice poured, Parker thought this was quite alright and settled into doing what he does best, mooching from any and all. He didn't seem to mind there was no place set for him but thought it was a marvelous idea that we were sitting at a table inside and another one out on the patio. His only quandary was where to infiltrate first but quickly figured that if there was noise generated at one table or the other, that's where he would be!!!! One could almost hear him saying, "Would you put some grated cheddar on those eggs for me???!!!!"

Sheila took him for a walk to see how disciplined he was and returned shortly to announce that he had taken her for a romp and was more than ready to go out for another!!!!!! The long and the short of it is, he is definitely too much dog for us and our rather small backyard!!!! I said to Sam that on a scale from 1 to 10, Parker is a 12 but absolutely needs acreage to run on/ in. We would be doing a disservice to him by taking him. We thanked him for his generosity in choosing us for Parker's next home.

So now it's about 3 in the afternoon and Sheila had been ferreting through the want ads for other animals, ones that were in fact, golden retrievers!!!!! There was a family about an hour away, further east of us that had a litter of puppies, golden retrievers, ready to go. So out we go, into the Fraser valley, into farming country to check out these puppies. We were greeted by the mother of the litter and one of her offspring from a litter a year ago. Happy faces and wagging tails received us and after shaking the owner's hand, we were led to a barn with 7 wiggly, squirming, falling all over each other, yapping puppies that were happy to have any attention thrown their way. We asked to see their females so 5 were removed and we were left with 2 choices, a lighter one, almost white in colour and a slightly darker one, light cinnamon, to look at. We both looked at the darker one and said, "She's ours!!!" Pure bred, no papers, vet checked, de wormed and first shots, a vet report to go along with her and $500. paid and we were on our way home with our latest addition!!!! We have named her Maggie much to the disapproval of our sons; they chose more exotic names like Butch, Rizzo, Nala (from Lion King) and other assorted names leaning into the RAP world!!!!