Little Brodie is 16 weeks old and of course Wally turned 16 years old in April. They may look very different, my old man is a rich copper and the other is a silky, soft, creamy white but they are both gentle, sweet souls…..true Goldens !!!
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Our little golden boy Brodie is 3 months old today. He is growing so fast. He has more than doubled his weight in the month that we’ve had him. No matter how bad he is, I just take one look at that face and my heart melts.
Our little Brodie is settling in nicely. He is a little afraid of Spirit’s larger than life personality and is very respectful of my beautiful oldie Goldie Wally. Unfortunately he is like an unruly, annoying little brother with poor little Tilly. We have to keep rescuing her from his grip.
I can’t stop taking pictures of his sweet little face. Each image is cuter than the last.
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Yesterday I got up at 3am to head to the airport for a very special trip to Victoria to meet this cute little boy. He is the newest member of our family. He is an English type Golden Retriever and I am in love!!! There were 11 puppies in the litter but by the time I got to the breeder’s home all of them had already been picked up by their new families. There were only 3 left in the house, a little boy and girl that she was keeping for her breeding program and our little boy. We got black boy….also known as “the bruiser”. She picked him for me because he is a very active little boy and needed an experienced family to manage all that energy. Yikes!!!
I got to enjoy the day hanging out with the puppies and then flew back last night. When I got to the Victoria airport all the Westjet ticket agents were swooning over that cute face. They had seen so many puppies leaving in the last two days that they immediately recognized him as another one from the same litter. He was so pooped that he fell asleep on a chair in the departure lounge.
He was wonderful on the flight back to Edmonton….except for one small problem….farting. It was so bad that I thought he may have pooped in his carrier. The women beside me got mad at her husband because she thought he was the culprit. We all had a good giggle when I told her it was Brodie.
I finally got to bed just after midnight. Our first night wasn’t too bad. I only had to take him out once but he was wide awake at 6am. Needless to say, I am wiped today. Here is the whole 4-legged family.
He has already had a busy morning and is now crashed on the kitchen floor…I wish I could join him for a nap.
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It may be grey and dreary outside but our lives are filled with sunshine today. Our beautiful golden boy is 16 years old today. The average life span for a golden retriever is 12 years…..we are incredibly blessed to have shared our lives with this amazing boy for 16 years. He had a delicious birthday breakfast of fresh ground turkey with pumpkin and fresh berries. Then he got to lick the empty pumpkin can. We have a long standing tradition of using Timbits (Wally’s favourite treat) to celebrate the big moments. On birthdays he would get one Timbit for every year and when his puppies were born he would get one for each baby. When he started getting into double digits we had to start cutting the Timbits in half. Later today he will get his 16 Timbit halves.
We had an early birthday celebration at Patty’s acreage on Thursday. We had a lovely lunch and nice walk on a beautiful, sunny spring day. We even managed to avoid Wally rolling in the horse and cow poop which he loves to do (as you will see below in the picture from his 11th birthday celebration at Patty’s).
Wally, Boomer, Stark, Hope, Spirit and little Tilly
To commemorate the big day I put together a series of images of Wally from 12 weeks to 16 years old.
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Now and then……..I can’t image a life without this amazing boy. He is my heart dog!!! (He looks so serious striking a pose in both pictures.)
15 years 10 months old
10 months old
As a thank you to my Golden Valentine we went for a walk (just Mom and her boy) to Tim Hortons to get him his favourite treat. He usually only gets a Timbit but today we went for the whole donut.
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I love it when we can start our mornings out on the deck enjoying our morning coffee/tea together.
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On Sunday I attended the graduation of one of Wally’s children. I have a very special spot in my heart for Garnet. Of the 51 puppies that Wally’s sired, he is the only one that really looks like his Dad. He spent the first few years of his working life as a guide dog for a wonderful gentleman. Sadly he passed away suddenly and Garnet was returned to the school. They decided that he was too young to retire so they retrained him and placed him with a psychologist to act as a therapy dog for her clients. Garnet is 7 years old now and watching him and his mannerisms….OMG he is definitely his Daddy’s boy. He has the same loving and gentle personality. Here is a picture of the whole graduating class. Garnet’s beautiful deep golden colour makes him stand out in the group….”one of these is not like the others”.
When they arrived, Garnet’s nose went up and he started air scenting and wagging his tail wildly. He knew we were there and he was excited.
I was able to get up close and snuggle with my beautiful grand-puppy. Isn’t he just beautiful.
A blast from the past…..in 2010 we had this photo taken (courtesy of Laughing Dog) of Wally and Garnet just before Garnet went into final training to be a guide dog.
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To say we are blessed to have our beautiful Golden Boy at the ripe old age of 15 is an understatement. Not only is he still with us but the quality of his life is really good. He is my “heart” dog. I love all of my fur kids but he and I have this very special bond that I just can’t put into words. I can’t imagine life without him….
Wally’s favourite treat are Timbits. Traditionally he gets one for each year. Once he got into double digits I started cutting them in half. Today I cut two ends off of each one and left the slice in the centre for the other dogs. It didn’t take him long to polish off 15 ends.
Ready and waiting
Patience
Here we go….
Going…..
Going….
Gone!!!
Nothin’ left but a pile of drool
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I found this new iPhone app called Superphoto. It allows you to apply filters to your pictures. I especially like the painting filter. It makes my already beautiful “kids” look even more beautiful.
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Way back in October 2003, when he was only 2-1/2, Wally’s first litter of puppies were born. There were 12 beautiful, pure bred Golden Retrievers. I was drawn to one of them immediately because she was a lovely dark red/golden colour like her Dad. I named her Bella and I was lucky to foster her until she was 6 months old.
Father and daughter snuggle time
Play time!!
The last time I saw Bella was when she was 2 years old but Wally has not seen her since she left us in April of 2004. That was until now. Wally is 14 years old and Bella is 11-1/2. They took one sniff of each other and it was like they were long time buddies. Bella is a little slow moving and has some trouble with stairs but the two of them ran around and played like puppies. It was so wonderful to watch.
Beautiful Bella and her handsome Dad Wally
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Tilly death stare
Say goodbye to the Canada Day headband
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A few weeks ago I read a very moving post about a dog that passed away unexpectedly. Her owner wanted a do over. Although she had literally hundreds of pictures of her beloved companion, she had none of her with her dog. The story struck a cord with me. I hate having my picture taken and I am always hiding from the camera. I have only a handful of pictures of me and Wally together. My boy is 14 now and he has already lived longer than the normal life expectancy of 12 years. I’m grateful that I saw that blog post. I don’t want to have the same regret when my very special boy goes over the rainbow bridge.
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Tilly and Spirt hanging out together on the couch
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Last weekend we went to Patty’s acreage to have some fun and give Spirit a chance to meet some new dogs and people and give her the first real opportunity for an off leash run. She is a bit of a timid little girl so I wasn’t quite sure how she was going to react. I was prepared just in case she was overwhelmed and decided to take off in the opposite direction. I have to give credit to the power of a group of wonderful dogs. She was totally relaxed and immediately joined in with the group. She made appropriate play signals and I never saw any fear or anxiousness in her body language. It was truly a beautiful thing. After our walk we all headed inside to enjoy a meal together. It is wonderful to be able to have a house full of dogs and never having to worry about any dog aggression issues.
The gang….6 two legged and 6 four legged adventurers (David the missing camera man)
A tired and content puppy
Taking a wee nibble of Boomer’s jowly cheek
Hope and Wally relaxing after a beautiful afternoon outdoors
Did I mention that Spirit was exhausted….
Tilly looking rested and relaxed because everyone took turns carrying the princess….she sure knows how to work a crowd.
Spirit kept trying to lick Wally’s tongue
Beautiful, shiny black Hope
Meet our newest family member Spirit. She is a Bernese Mountain Dog and she will be 10 weeks old on Feb 7th. We just picked her up tonight and brought her home. She already has her own blog. You can find her at LIFEWITHSPIRIT.CA
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I can giggle now when I look at these pictures but at the time I felt so sorry for my little girl. She woke us up in the middle of the night crying in pain. We rushed to the emergency vet and we discovered that she had a very swollen and infected anal gland. They had to drug her and open it up to drain it. When we got home she had trouble standing and holding her head up with the cone of shame on. I made a little nest for her in front of the fireplace. When she was a little more conscious I gave her a little yogurt (that accounts for all the extra white around her chin) to help offset the negative effects of the antibiotics they put her on.
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Squeaky Toy Love
I just love those big, fat, jowly cheeks.
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Merry Christmas from the Dog House to your house. Linking up to Wordless Wednesday at Blogpaws.
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Tilly’s lovely long hair acts like a snowball magnet.
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Earlier this year SARShop.com contacted search and rescue groups from around the world asking members to submit photos of their dogs. Their plan was to produce the first Search and Rescue calendar. We submitted a couple of pictures of our beautiful Tango and then promptly forgot about it. Just a couple of days before Tango crossed over the rainbow bridge we received an email telling us that Tango’s picture had been chosen for the calendar. This weekend we received our complimentary copy of the 2015 calendar. It was very emotional for us to see our girl’s picture in the calendar. The picture above is the one they chose. She is part of a group of pictures for the month of July.
Back in 2012 this picture of Tango was chosen to hang in the Royal Alberta Museum as part of their Wolf to Woof exhibit. (read more about it here).
Just a few more pictures of our girl. She always looked like she was smiling. Gosh I miss her……..
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When I have been sitting at my sewing machine for too long, Tilly likes to poke her head up between my legs and demand that I stop piecing and give her some loving.
Remember Me? I need a little attention here!!!
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The temperature went from being almost +20 degrees celsius to -17 in just a few days. It was such an abrupt temperature change that we did not have the chance to gradually adapt to the colder temperatures. I went for a run and my boy wanted to come with me so badly that I just couldn’t say no to those big, beautiful brown eyes. He got geared up with fleece booties, a jacket and a makeshift fleece ear protector held together by a hair clip. The second day I switched to a long neck warmer and pulled it up over his ears and that worked a lot better.
As you can see by the expression on his face…..he was not amused….but he was warm.
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Sleeping Beauty
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We spent a beautiful fall day at Patty’s farm/acreage. The dogs always have a wonderful time running free in her fields and eating as many cow pies as they can find. Wally does enjoy eating a few of them but his first love is rolling in them. My boy has never met a pile of poop that he didn’t want to roll in. We dressed him in a long sleeved t-shirt to try and keep the poop out of his beautiful golden locks. Unfortunately we had to take it off when it got too loose around his belly and he peed all over it. Then the dogs found the dug out and went in for a quick swim and drink. The other 5 dogs got out fairly clean but our Wally got stuck in mud half way up his body and had to be pulled out by Patty. Talk about a mud bath…..now he has to have a ‘real’ bath…but he was pretty happy with himself. I’m still amazed at how active and agile he is for a old man of 13 years…..14 in April.
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Life In The Dog House 