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Goldie the Golden Retriever
Goldie is a lovely product of the animal shelter
program, adopted on 12/23/97. We have no idea where he came from, or how he was
as a little puppy (oh, he must have been cute!) but he's here now in our
lives and making it more joyful all the while. It all started even before my family moved from New Jersey to California. All her life, my mother had dogs in her house and adored them. My dad, well, he was impartial to dogs on the whole, but a ferocious bark scared him out of his socks, LOL. I loved all sorts of fuzzies, and my sister loved the idea of having a dog around. But in NJ, the snow was an annoyance to the need of dog-walking, and we never bothered to get one. The plan was to move to California and get a dog soon after. And so it was. The move came and went, and the unpacking finished soon after. The quest to find the right fuzzy dog began. The animal shelter was one of the first places my mom thought of. She's a very cheap person, LOL, and the very thought of having to pay $500 for a purebred golden retriever puppy gives her the willies. Goldens are her favorites, but $500?! The shelter was also a possible way of saving a dog's life if we intervened in time. (My dad didn't know what "putting an animal to sleep" meant and I had to tell him that it was basically a nice term for lethal injection!) So off to the shelter we went. I remember we went up and down the halls at least five times, LOL...I had initially wanted some month-old puppies (they were so fuzzy and so CUTE!!) but we wouldn't be able to take care of them properly, since both my parents worked and us kids had to go to school. After being told that, (::sniff:: they were cute too!) we went back to the halls, resigned, and was about to choose a docile female hound, when my mom noticed the hyper, red-hued golden retriever. We had somehow missed him on our previous rounds. While Mom was cooing by his cage, we took a look at his information card on front of the cage. His name was Nugget, and he had been found on the streets the Wednesday before by a police officer, a presumed golden retriever without any identification. He was one hyper dog, jumping on the cage front and trying to lick Mom's fingers as she poked them through the wire. (You have to understand one thing about my mom: She loves dogs, and dogs love her. Bona fide doggy charisma. I'm so jealous, LOL...) My dad, a little intimidated by Nugget's energy, looked unsure, but 4 seconds after finding this dog, Mom announced, "Ooh! We're getting this one!" Dad didn't look too thrilled, but Mom was sure he would get over it, LOL. So, on with the paperwork. With Nugget being about a year old, it was okay to leave him in the house for the six hours we would be at school. They didn't think he was housebroken (we didn't think so either, after he peed on the cage floor, LOL) but Mom didn't let that faze her. We asked if Nugget was his real name, and it turned out that he had no name when he arrived, and they just gave him one. My sister proposed the name Goldie, and it stuck with us. Before we took him home, we were obliged to meet him first. In room just blocked off the hall, we waited. Hearing the sound of doggy nails being dragged on the tile floor, we knew we were in for one energetic dog. Dashing in, Goldie proceeded to jump on the sofa and try and lick everyone's faces. A nice, friendly dog, albeit a little (haha) hyperactive. And so he went home with us, vaccinations and neutering paid for. LOL Mom was so proud of herself. Go
on the next segment of Goldie's story!
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