Our story is a reverse of yours. We raised our Golden Retriever, Fenway, from a puppy to a wonderful ten year old dog. Fenway lived a relatively healthy life right up until his tenth birthday when he became lethargic and wasn’t eating. It turned out he had cancer, and even after an eight pound tumor was removed from his abdomen, his life was not gauranteed. This was in November of 05. After what we thought was a turnaround brought on from a few months of chemo, we had to help Fenway to “The Bridge” in April 06. It was devastating as he was our only *child*. Remarkably enough, we had put in to rescue a Golden weeks earlier and two hours after we let Fenway go, the Rescue organization called two hours later to tell us we had our choice of five dogs. We adopted two. Ferris and Cameron. I honestly think Fenway knew that we would be lost without him and didn’t want us to be alone. Ferris and Cameron will never replace Cameron, but my heart hurts a little less.
We chronicled Fenway’s cancer and then the adoption of Ferris and Cameron at http://www.goldendreams.org

Bari from NH