From 1998
“I will never forget the day I adopted Casey (formerly Prince) one April day in 1998,” says Jan.
“Betty, the adoption coordinator for GRRMF had several fosters for me to meet to see if I connected with any of them. Since I was looking for a small female, she had arranged to bring the dogs out in order of size. One after another, these lovely dogs came over and greeted me. The last one was a HUGE Golden named Romeo who carried a teddy bear in his mouth. He was adorable, but he was a male and the largest Golden Retriever I had ever seen.
“When she said that she had one more, I thought to myself, ‘Is it part Great Dane?’ She gave me a biscuit, explaining that because this dog was very skittish, he might not approach me, and the biscuit was for enticement.
“The minute he peeked his head around the corner, I was smitten with those big, expressive brown eyes. It was like looking directly into his soul. I hadn’t planned on adopting either a male or a senior dog, but he was the one. After completing all the paperwork (I still don’t know if he was 8 or 10 at the time), he jumped in the back of my car (a hatchback). Before I even got to the end of Betty’s street, he squeezed in between the seats and sat right in my lap!
“Despite the fact that this was a stick shift car, I managed to get all the way home with a 70-pound Golden Retriever in my lap. It was as if he didn’t want me to get away. I think we both knew that we were meant to be together.
“I still have the hatchback (an antique now), partly because all of my rescues, starting with Casey, have made their first and last journeys with me in that car.”
