Farmington Valley Golden Retrievers

__

Sometimes people come into your lives and make an enormous impact. In my life, two wonderful women from Vermont did just that.  Kathy & Carolyn contacted me seven years ago about potentially breeding their female Golden Retriever, Skeeter, to our Travis.

Kathy & Carolyn train their dogs in obedience, agility, tracking and just about anything else they can find the time to do.  After carefully researching pedigrees and investigating various stud dogs, they asked about Travis, who was a champion with an obedience title and two hunting titles, as a possible choice to sire Skeeter’s litter.

As luck would have it Peter and I had planned a visit with friends in Vermont a couple of weeks later so we invited Kathy & Carolyn to meet Travis while we were there.  To know Travis was to love him immediately.  His magnetic personality made him a favorite of all he met, human or dog, and Kathy & Carolyn were no exception.  Meeting Travis sealed the deal and a rendevous was planned.

.

A short time later Skeeter was bred to Travis and gave birth to a litter of 9 puppies.  Everyone was beyond thrilled. Skeeter brought great working ability to the pedigree as she was multi-titled herself.  These pups would have great potential!  When the litter was about 3 weeks old, Travis who was 8 at the time, had a grand mal seizure.  It was an extremely hot/humid August day and his temperature was dangerously high.  We immediately cooled him down in the tub and called our vet, took him for bloodwork and observation and put him on a mild dose of phenobarbital.  All tests were negative but a few days later he seizured again.  This was followed by a nosebleed…not a good sign at all.  One week post the first seizure, Travis died on his bed in our kitchen.  The diagnosis was likely a rapidly growing brain tumor.  No words could adequately describe our grief.  I knew I must contact Kathy & Carolyn to te ll them the awful news.  I simply could not speak, and so I wrote the hardest e-mail I have ever written telling them the dog they had so carefully chosen as a suitable mate for Skeeter’s litter was now gone at a very young age and likely from brain cancer.  I felt terrible about it on so many levels.

.

A few days later I received a letter in the mail from Kathy & Carolyn.  Having been in the “dog business” for as long as I had, I knew this could go very badly.  But people can surprise you, and along with their sincere condolences, they offered me of one of Skeeter and Travis’ pups.  I wondered how this could be, how they could be so generous, so understanding.  I thought about their offer for a few days and made the call.  The answer was YES, I wanted one and I wanted a boy.

.

When the pups were 7 weeks old my good friend Jeannine Vieten and I made the trip to Kathy & Carolyn’s beautiful farm and training center in Tinmouth, VT.  The pups were darling and there were two boys in particular that caught my eye.  In the end I decided on a puppy we named ‘T” which was Travis’ nickname.

Needless to say it was a very emotional day for all of us.  I went to Vermont fully intending to pay for T because after all, Kathy & Carolyn had paid a stud fee in full for the breeding to Travis.  It was only right that I buy the puppy.  They refused to take payment for him and T has become the greatest gift anyone has ever given to us.  He is now Ch. North Star Pebwin Crossroads JH WC and has made Skeeter, Travis, Kathy, Carolyn, Peter and me extremely proud.

But more importantly, before he became the accomplished adult he is today, he filled our hearts with joy and eased the pain of Travis’ loss.

Thank you Kathy & Carolyn for being there when we needed it most and for helping us to remember that goodness, human kindness and compassion exists. We will be forever grateful for your friendship and for your gift of T.

It seems very appropriate with it being Thanksgiving week, to look back on our most recent litter and share some of the heartwarming moments that ended our last adventure. At that time Barb was with puppy Rocky at Tufts Vet Hospital, and I was out of state for a long planned neighborhood guy’s weekend away. So our son Brian and a number of our great neighbors stepped in and helped give away the puppies to their new families.

They all did a fantastic job of it, and even managed to capture the happy faces as they took their new family members home.

Barb and I then saw the last few pups leave the following day.

The really neat thing about our last two families was that Lisa and Suzy were college roommates. They have kept close while raising their families, and they each have had two of our dogs now. While Barb and I knew that the house was going to be very quiet when the last two pups left, we had a lot of fun with everyone at the end. Even mother Emma was able to share in some last minute play with her offspring.

We still had those pangs of emptiness, but since we still had Rocky to nurse back to health, it wasn’t as bad as usual..

And finally, I did promise a few folks who came to visit, their moment in the glare of the internet lights, so here is everyone (I think), who came at the end of our last litter days for their puppy hugs and photos.

In closing, Barb and I wish much Thanksgiving happiness to all our readers, friends, and puppy owners. With the number of very happy smiles in this blog alone, you can see why we feel blessed for the opportunity to do what we do for our favorite animals and their owners. Like mission work, you really do gain much in return when giving of your time and energy to others.

Barb and I, and our son Brian have returned from our Dominican mission trip. Much good was accomplished in the mountainous region where we spent the week. I hope that we were also able to instill some long lasting missionary spirit in the returning 34 health care professionals.

I would like to acknowledge the great efforts of our small village of neighbors and friends who kept our home and animals safe while we traveled.

I had expected to write a much different blog today. However, a momentary distraction at the wheel of my dog van this morning, changed my day off into one of loss and aggravation (all my fault, of course).

I had taken to driving the dogs to the high school instead of walking them there for their runs. With the endless number of squirrels on our walking route, my shoulders were starting to complain about the constant tugging in all directions from the 300 plus pounds of golden energy on the leashes. This idea was working out great, until a momentary distraction from two dogs in the front seat, caused me to hit a concrete curve at the high school. The two airbags deployed, and there were pieces of the undercarriage laying on the asphalt. Seeing radiator fluid dripping down is never a good sign either.

This van is like an old comfortable pair of shoes to me. It has taken many a trip with our children and animals, and has been reliable to the extreme. Its probable loss has left me feeling saddened. While only an inanimate object, it has been a part of dogville here for over ten years.

The dogs and I were fine as we were traveling slowly in the parking lot. I still can’t believe how much damage that curb caused with nary a mark to its own cement skin. As I wait for the insurance adjuster’s call to probably declare the van totalled, I reflect how life is made of all these sudden moments where you would like to get a do over or a mulligan in golfing parlance. Time travels in but one direction, so the girls and I will go back to our usual walks as long as my shoulders hold out.

PS: No sign of Riley’s heat yet for all those waiting for that news.

PPS: To do a guest blog, we need appropriate photos as well as the story. One without the other is not enough to entertain our readers.

Rocky, as some of you already know, went to our son Michael Jr. in Maryland last weekend. Barbara took him in a crate and met with Mike and Emma and their two boys Ethan and Alex in a park in NY. Also along was Emma’s mother who has been visiting from Mexico. Her name is Emma as well. I was on call again,  so I couldn’t make the trip. We took some photos of the final fun time between Rocky and his mom that morning..

I think his presence for the extra four weeks that it took him to recover from his surgery, helped Emma adjust well to the loss of the rest of her litter.

The meeting of the puppy with our son’s family went beautifully. The photos say it all as far as the excitement and happiness he brought to our little grandsons.

And, of course, now I have some new family poses to add to the wall in my office..

I have no doubt Rocky will grow up with an abundance of love and boyhood energy!

Now for some housekeeping..

My next three weeks will be taken up with getting ready for, and then going to the Dominican Republic for my annual mission adventure. I find it now necessary to shutter the camera and turn off the public lights on dogville for this upcoming time frame. This third world trip has been a year in the planning and much depends on its success. It is taking over my every waking moment.

I am happy to report that we have accepted our first guest blog!! It is being finalized.  Publishing it requires some time and energy on my part to move it into this web site, so you will not see it until after I return. I still have unfinished business with the rest of the great folks who spent time with us around our little pen in the backyard or whelping box in the final weeks. Those photos await my attention as well as publishing the photos of our new owners when they came to pick up their puppy. So much to do and so little time to accomplish it all as usual.

So until I am back, golden hugs to everyone out there..

I live an unusual profession. Guarding the unborn and their mothers from the random and often senseless strikes of mother nature against the survival of our kind. It is a world that hopeful parents to be and their family members are best ignorant of. But the battle goes on ceaselessly every day I put on my cloth armor of a white coat or scrubs. Our best weapons are the skills that have become second nature when you work 80 hours per week for thirty years doing the same thing every day. And my closest friends are the medical personnel who work side by side with me trying to accomplish as a team what you could never do as an individual.

But even to us seasoned and weary veterans, sometimes an event will occur that defies expectations or reality. After the fact, you sit back and reflect that what happened was beyond belief, and that meant there was a power higher than yours that made the difference.

This is one of these stories, and it has a happy ending that I will share with you first. When you are blessed to be part of a miracle, you need to let others know. Crazy as the world is, maybe there is a purpose for it after all..

This photo was taken in my office a week ago. I have permission from Ursulyn and Andry to share their story. The flowers reflect our happiness that she and her son have made a complete recovery from…

It started with a phone call while I was working in the Delivery Room. One of my partners phoned and told me one of our full term pregnant patients had arrived for her regular OB visit, and was having serious trouble breathing. He had called 911 and he told me she was being sent to the Delivery Room. I alerted the staff and we made preparations for whatever might be wrong. Minutes went by and no patient arrived. Then the ER called and said that she was being kept there for a serious medical condition. I hurried through several attached buildings to the ER and found bedlam.

In a regular examining room there was my patient, unconscious and trying to be ventilated by the ER staff. Staff from the Delivery Room and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit had just arrived and were watching with shock as she coded and CPR was begun. Like a preposterous scenario from the television series “ER” or “House”, I found myself in a situation where literally a minute or two was to make a difference whether that mother and baby lived or died. The fetal heart rate was present but dropping. Her husband was standing there watching in shock as I asked for a scalpel. Without taking time to do anything but put on a pair of gloves, I delivered the baby. The sound of a newborn cry was a very welcome sound to the large multitude of staff gathered outside the patient’s cubicle. Veterans all, but many crying from the reality of what was happening with that mother to be.

Without being overly dramatic, let me say that this was the first time that I had done an operation where there was no bleeding. Her heart had stopped and her blood was black. This was going to be a very bad outcome. As I closed her incision, the resuscitation team kept on with their heroic efforts. Multiple drugs were given at intervals to get her heart started. And then, someone called out that she had a heart rhythm, and then a pulse. The blood turned bright red again. But nine minutes had passed since her heart had stopped. The question was: would she wake up, and what kind of condition would she be in?

She was transferred to the ICU where a battery of specialists determined that she had developed a very unusual heart condition called peripartum cardiomyopathy. Her heart muscle had slowly weakened over the week prior to her arrival in our office, and she was in heart failure. She was literally drowning with fluids building up in her lungs. The treatment is delivery and allowing the heart muscle to try and recover. That had been accomplished in the ER.

For three days her husband kept a vigil outside her room in the unit. The enormity of the potential problems facing that young man with the reality of raising a new baby without his wife humbled me. But on the third day, she started to become alert. She gradually returned to the world of the living and her faculties slowly recovered. We all held our breath when the neurologist did his battery of tests and reported that she was “neurologically intact”.

Another week went by, and my daily routine in the office kept me busy out of the hospital. With my next hospital duty, I inquired of her location and was told she had just been discharged to the Hospital for Special Care for rehab. So after my weekend on call, I decided to pay this very special person a visit. I brought one of the puppies to cheer her up, since I wasn’t sure what sort of mental state she would be in. I got to the hospital and found she had just been discharged the day before. I called her husband and asked if I could see them in their home. He gave me directions. This is what I found.

Thankfully she has no memory of the events of that day, or even being in our office for her prenatal visit. But outside of her memory lapses, her personality, and sense of self is intact. Her hug and smile made me know that I was part of something very special. I told her God must have very special plans for her.

George Strait recently wrote a country song, ” I saw God today”. It goes..

“I’ve been to church, I’ve read the book, I know he’s here, I don’t look as often as I should. His fingerprints are everywhere, I just need to slow down to stop and stare, and open my eyes. I saw God today.”