Happy Birthday My Sweet Rufus

On November 9, 2008 our Malamute girl Shamaya passed away suddenly at the age of ten years. She had a tumor on her spleen that ruptured...we had no clue whatsoever what had been brewing in her body. I was awakened at 5:30 a.m. on that Sunday morning to her yelping, struggling to stand up and by 9 a.m. we were standing in the vet's office being told she was dying and there was nothing that could be done. I remember staring at our vet in disbelief...he had to be wrong...it couldn't be....she was fine yesterday...how can this be? I wanted to run out of the vet's office...take Shamaya and run home...I wanted to scream..I wanted to smack the messenger! I wanted to be angry...instead I bent over my girl lying on the table and I looked into her eyes. She was ready to go...her life was slowly slipping away. As the two people who loved her most we helped her across the Rainbow Bridge. I remember driving home with Steve..both of us crying. He told me he didn't ever want another dog. "We've been through this so many times...I can't lose anymore friends," he said through tears. My heart broke into a million pieces...not have a dog??? I've always had a dog. My parents raised German Shepherds...we had dogs ever since I was 5 years old. When Steve and I got married, we talked about having a dog as soon as we could afford one. My parents gave us our first wonderful dog, Bear when Little Darling Number Two was three months old and we had at least one dog from that day on. Not have a dog???? Dogs are like air to me...I had to have a dog...but I couldn't force things. I knew I had to give him time to heal from the devastation of losing Shamaya. I prayed it wouldn't take him long to heal and change his mind. We went home that day, dogless and we lived dogless for a week. The house felt cold and empty. There was no dog hair to vacuum, no muddy footprints to wash off the floor...no sweet white face waiting at the window when we came home...no warm neck to snuggle when the snow started falling. A week after we lost Shamaya, I started dropping hints that maybe we could think about getting a puppy...just think. Not to replace Shamaya, we could never do that, but to help fill the hole that was left in our hearts. Steve was reluctant but he said, "Maybe we could look"...those were the words I had been praying for...."look"... I knew what that meant!!  Our sons claimed Golden Retrievers were the quintessential "old person dog" so we figured since we were now entering that "old person decade", it was time to consider this breed. I started researching Golden breeders and came across one site that caught my attention. The breeder seemed educated, knowledgeable and caring....and then I saw the picture of Neo (aka Big Daddy). Neo was by far the handsomest boy I had ever laid eyes on...and he had sired a litter that was due to be born in a few weeks. I showed Steve the pictures on Vicki's site and he said, "Well we could go see her and meet the dogs"....that was all I needed. I made an appointment and the following weekend we sat in Vicki's living room surrounded by Goldens...with Neo leading the pack in welcoming us. I was in love. That day was intended to be a "gathering information day"...we left having given Vicki a deposit for a male puppy out the of the expected litter. Now we just had to wait and see if in fact mom, Eva had a male puppy. We decided on a name before we even knew our puppy had been born. His registered name would be Animation's I Have a Dream.....and his call name would be Rufus. Three weeks later while Christmas shopping on December 13th we received an email on Steve's Blackberry. The subject line read..."Puppies have arrived". Steve handed me the Blackberry so I could read the message...."Three boys....", that's all I remember seeing...THREE BOYS.  Our Rufus had arrived.

**To be continued