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Beautiful Chocolate Lab!

GRROW requires prospective adoptive "parents" to fill out a lengthy application after passing an "in home" interview. Among the questions asked is: "Describe your ideal "forever" Golden adoptee."

I answered that I wanted a 4 year old female, blond, rather flat-coated (wavy), housebroken and LARGE Golden with good hips. I specifically said that I preferred a large dog because I didn't particularly like those half-pint Goldens that they are breeding now. Besides, with big dogs, there is more to love, I reasoned. A couple of weeks later, a lady called and announced that she had a special dog she wanted me to see. No obligation.

I asked, "Oh, is a a female?"

"No, a male." (About 75% of the dogs up for adoption are males.)

"Oh, is it 4?"

"No, he's about 1 1/2 to 2." (I'm certain he was no more than 8 months old by the rate of his development after we adopted him. I've raised a Golden from the age of 12 weeks before, and I am familiar with how they look and behave at different ages.)

"Is he blond?"

"No, he is dark red, but he's really special and has good hips."

"Is he housbroken?"

"Yes."

"Is he big?"

"Yes."

"Ok, bring him out Saturday morning," I said, somewhat disappointed.

Saturday morning, Max hopped out of her van and put one paw on my front porch. I immediately decided that RED GOLD is the very BEST color! My husband was still set on a female, however.

We played with him for a while and he escaped from my pasture because someone had left the back gate open, unbeknownst to me! The three of us had a merry chase around the yard trying to recapture a lively dog who absolutely didn't know where he was, but thought that chasing is FUN! He had flushed a cat out from under my deck and was determined to catch up with it. During the chase, Max clipped my husband from behind on a dead run and knocked him FLAT on the ground, but we eventually caught the rambunctious dog and brought him inside.

I thought that this was never going to work. My husband wanted a female because usually they're easier to handle and, of course, he was nursing sore elbows from being knocked flat! The lady said that it was time to go and she'd leave us to think about the adoption. She said we had one or two weeks to decide. No rush.

My husband said, "You are not taking that dog ANYWHERE. He's staying right here, and we're adopting him."

She said, "I can't do that. That's against our rules, and besides, I didn't bring his papers and his food."

"You can mail the papers, and we'll buy food. We want to keep the dog."

"Really, I should take him back to my house and let you think it over." (She lived about 50 miles from me.)

"I hope you brought your toothbrush," my husband said, "because Max isn't going anywhere."

I signed all the papers, promising to take him to dog training and wrote them a check. My husband and I both agree that Max is just the best thing that has ever happened to us, and I hope he feels the same way.

He has an unusual life. He goes to work with us every day and accompanies us on all of our travels -- often 1500 miles, or more. He never barks, or whines, although he can. This makes him a perfect office dog. We had to leave him in a kennel for the first time over Christmas because we were flying, and we both missed him so much. We called and checked on him several times. The kennel thought we were nuts!

We asked Max's foster mom why she picked our application out of so many, and she said it was because of some of my answers. She liked the descriptions of some of the games we used to play with our previous Golden who died after 15 1/2 years. The other key word was BIG!

We were slow to acquire another dog after losing Terra because we were afraid that no other dog could measure up to her. However, GRROW brought us a dog who is even BETTER than our female was, as much as we hate to admit it.

Max is a real gem, and so is his foster mom.