About Our Dog Family
We've had Golden Retrievers since 1996.
We brought Betsy home on April 20, 2009. She was 10 months old.
Betsy and Griffren playing...constantly!
We had a very sad thing to happen Monday, February 9, 2009--
we lost Louie at 12 1/2 years of age.
For the last six months or so, he had been aging rather quickly, we thought. For a week before his death we knew something was wrong, and wondered if he had had a stroke. His eating habits were different, and his energy level was very much decreased. He didn't seem to be in any discomfort, though.
Finally after a week of no marked improvement, Sam took him to the vet for observation. The first thing he noticed was that he seemed anemic, so he did blood work to confirm that. He was VERY anemic, so he had to determine WHY. He did an ultrasound and saw that he had a tumor in his spleen that had caused his spleen to burst. He said this was very bad news and that at his age, almost certainly the tumor was malignant and almost certainly had spread to other areas of his body.
Sam and I went down to the office to see Louie for the last time. We loved on him and cried, then continued to have our hands on him as the vet gave him his last treatment. Oh, it hurt so bad to lose him, but we could not bring him home and have him linger on to death.
LOVE ON YOUR DOGS WHILE YOU HAVE THEM. 
Louie in Bluebonnets in San Antonio, TX, at about 5 years of age.
Louie in Mississippi at about 10 years old.
Louie in September 2008
Several years ago we decided to breed. After several years of listening, reading, and asking lots of questions we got our first bitch with the intent to breed. Darby had one litter...March 20, 2007. You can see all about that on
www.dandygoldens.com.
Darby's litter at seven weeks of age.