After losing our beloved Golden Jack to a summer long battle with spinal cancer; my daughter, husband, female bull dog mix Lucy, and I realized we couldn’t live without another smiling, gentle, bundle of Golden energy. Although we weren’t looking for another senior Golden, we saw Barkley’s profile on the RAG’s website and decided what the hell and adopted another senior dog. When Barkley arrived one week before Halloween we instantly fell in love with his goofy smile and mammoth paws however he was not the bundle of Golden energy we were hoping for. But that was OK with us; we gladly took him on very meandering morning and evening walks with Lucy leading the way and Barkley bringing up the rear. Over the next two months it was apparent that he was dramatically slowing down even taking breaks during his walks to lay down and take in the scenery. During the week of Christmas; Barkley lost his appetite and his face swelled making him look more like a Shar Pei than our handsome Golden Retriever we adopted in October. On Christmas Eve our vet gave us the bad news that Barkley had an extremely enlarged heart and probably couldn’t make it through the weekend…. We always knew he had a “big heart” but didn’t realize how big it actually was. We were with him when he crossed the golden bridge and look forward to seeing him and Jack when it’s our time to cross. Even though he was only with us a very short amount of time we loved him as if he had lived with us his entire life. We all miss both of our Golden’s, but with both of them passing so closely their canine sister Lucy has been the slowest to recover and is still grieving. My family and I hope to welcome a new/younger Golden into our family in the very near future.

Christina Hannon