My husband and I had an amazing year last year. We got married, went on an amazing honeymoon and rounded off the summer by going on a family vacation with my side of the family. I really can not complain. It was more then we could have ever dreamed of. Summer came to an end and we began to discuss adopting a golden retriever to be a play mate to our other golden, Fable. Sean and I went back and forth about this. My thought was I wanted a dog that was a bit older but not too old. One that would know when Fable needed to be left alone and when it was ok to play. You see Fable was 11 years old at the time and not fond of puppies. So an older dog would not need a playmate from sun up to sun down. Fable could also teach the new dog how to take care of us so when she made that last trip we would have a dog to focus our attention on rather than come home to an empty house. Sean really wanted a puppy but finally agreed that a puppy would be too much for our girl. So around October we started filling out the adoption pages. In November, someone came out to see if our home was good enough to take a new dog and care for them. Fable shows the lady that she could tolerate another animal in her space and shared her beautiful personality. In December we were given the news that we could start looking at the dogs on GRREAT website to find that perfect match for our family. But that was where we decided to leave it for a week or so. Fable did not seem to be feeling well. She would cough and was becoming sick soon after. We wanted to make sure that she was healthy before we brought anyone new into the home. On the 19th of December, Fable decided that she did not want to eat and she was not herself. We took her to the vet and they took some blood and urine. Things looked mostly good so they sent her home with a few medications for a stomach bug. Saturday morning she stopped eating all together and was struggling to stand. Enough was enough. We mad our second trip to the vets. This time Sean had stayed home and my mother came along. We were excepting to find out that she had an infection and a different course of meds would do the trick. The vet came back with the worst possible news. It seems that Cancer had snuck up on our girl and was surrounding her longs and heart. This was making it hard for her to breath and they were not sure that she would make it through the night without suffering a great deal of pain. So I made that horrible decision to end her pain. We called the family and waited for everyone to come say good bye and then did the most humane thing I could do. We lay with her for 30 minutes after she was gone and then returned to our house. I could no longer call it my home. It was an empty shell. Sean and I spent the next week sleeping most of the day. Christmas was the worst. But come the 5th we could not take the silence any longer. GRREAT was having a meet and greet. We made that trip to see if we could mend our home and hearts. We soon discovered two brothers in need of a home and they could sense that out hearts were hurting. The next day we received a phone call saying they were ours if we wanted them but there was a catch. Since the first of January the price to adopt had gone up. So here we were ready to take these boys home just five days after the prices had change. This left us in a new morning period. I emailed the adoption coordinator to plead our case. So this is where we sit. We are waiting to hear back from them to see if they will make an exception. The last week has been full of some ups and downs as we wait but as long as there is a chance there is hope.
