Heeeres's Goldie

One Saturday morning, I decided to get a Sunday paper when I made my weekend morning Starbucks run. I never do this, but for some reason I picked it up.

After going though the paper, I was dicking around in the want ads section and saw an ad for a free Golden Retriever. So after some amount of discussion, and passing it by Marlena ("Do you want sister girl? Huh, Marlena? A sister?! Yes, you doooo, huh?") we gave the number a call. The dog was 6 months old (actually 8 months, but whatever) so she was only a couple months younger than Marlena. The people giving her away didn't want any money for her, they just wanted to ensure that she had a very good home. They had recently moved to a house in Duval and had a small yard (by small I am talking 9 feet by 2 feet, and the people were gone very often and the dog didn't get a lot of attention.



So after being questioned, we all packed up into the car and headed out to Duval. Now, why anyone would move to Duval to buy a house without a yard is beyond me. I am talking about 40 minutes outside of Seattle and in cow country. It just doesn't make much sense to me. I mean for the amount that we paind for our house, you would buy a house on an acre. But whatever, I dont have to live there.

On the way there we were discussing names. We figured that we would keep the dogs name once we got her, just to make it less confusing for her. On the way there I cursed us:

"I hope they haven't named her something stupid like Goldie."

Yeah, so when we got there they introduced us to Goldie. *Sigh* Oh well.

She was very standoffish of us in the house, a little growly and would not take a treat from us. We had them bring her outside and meet Marlena. She tolerated her fine at this point, but seemed to ignore her for the most part. She warmed up a bit to us when we were outside. We decided that we would take her. We promised to keep her name...I figured, why not, we could call her Goldie Hawn. (How gay is that? One dog named after a soap opera and one named after Goldie Hawn.) Ans she actually came with papers! A purebred Golden! For free! Woot!!

Once we had Goldie in the car and driving away from the house where she had lived, its like all of that standoffishness just want away. She sat on her side of the car and Marlena on the other. She stuck her head out of the window and looked happy. No tifts, not a sound out of her and she was wearing her Golden Retriever smile.

Once home things progressed well. We coaxed her up onto the couch with us, which she did not want to do at first. ( I know, I know, bad doggie parents) We had one small fight that night over a treat, but I looked at that as Marlena showing dominance over Goldie as top dog.

Over the next few months Goldie learned about things she had never had before. Toys ( she loves balls, always has one in her mouth. At first she didnt know what a toy was or what to do with it.), kitties (LOVES kitties. She will go from room to room and count them. Devon is her favorite as he will nuzzle on her head and chew on her nose) and GOOD dog food and treats. Not those shitty Milk Bone biscuits.



She loves her kiddie pool, but hates deep water. The photo shown here on the right was profiled on the Seattle PI website last summer and the original owner saw them. She emailed me a very touching note saying that she and her daughter thought about her often and was happy to see that she had a good home. I still kind of mist up when I think about that. I am sure it would be very hard to give up a pet that you loved, especially if its Goldie.

Introducing Marlena!

Marlena is the first dog that we have had as a couple. She is a purebred (supposedly) Golden Retriever. We had been thinking about getting a dog for some time. I was a bit apprehensive as having owned dogs while growing up, I knew how hard it was to raise a puppy.

We were in Kitsap county one day visiting my family and we grabbed a local paper, saw an ad for Golden Retriever puppies and had to go check them out (stopping at the cash machine on the way, of course). We got to the house on the outskirts of Bremerton and were shown to the back yard. I sat on the edge of the patio waiting for the guy to release the hounds. SIX young Golden Retriever puppies come running out of the house, all jumping over each other and racing up to me wanting to lick.

There was one puppy that had the cutest curly little ears. And soulful brown eyes. She was also hiding under a patio chair hoarding her treat from her brothers and sisters. This was going to be our little girl!

With the new puppy in tow, we stopped at a BBQ restaurant and had dinner thinking about names. The puppy, of course stayed in the car.

The two names that I remember discussing were Ndnd,pronounced "undunda", of Omicron Persei 8 (a Futurama reference) and the other name was Marlena. Evans. Dr. Marlena Evans. From Days of Our Lives. A freaking soap opera. Now granted, Ndnd was from a cartoon, but still... A SOAP OPERA?! Well, Marlena stuck and when we got her dog tag, it had to say Dr. Marlena Evans.

She is quite the dainty flower now, weighing in at a hefty 85 lbs. She is very fun loving and loves to lick. And eat tissue paper. Used tissue paper being the preference. She likes to watch TV and to play with her sister (by adoption) Goldie.