Mark, Thought you\’d like to see one of the  articles i wrote while President of Golden Ret. Rescue Education and Training (Northern VA. area)

Since my adoptive father is the president of your organization, and since I have
considerable pull with/over him, he has deferred his president’s message to me. My
name is Sonny and for quite some time now I have been trying to figure out just how
things have gone so wrong for my kind.
I was adopted four years ago after being one of the harder cases your GRREAT
organization had taken in at that point in time. I was only about 40 pounds when I came
into this thing called “Rescue.” To make a long story short, I had been beaten,
tormented and simply led a miserable existence. The life I recall had one end of a
logging chain tied around my neck and the other end tied to a log. I guess my paws, tail
and head took the brunt of the beatings, because I would not let anyone touch those
areas. After a few years of my adoptive parents gently touching and squeezing those
areas I finally realized that no harm would come to me. Basically, my life is pretty well
settled, other than the fact that I am tormented by what you call thunderstorms. Nothing anyone can do can or will help me. I simply loose all
matter of time and control, but my family continues loving
me anyway, even after I have chewed and scratched
through four doors. We’re still working on this aspect of
my life and hopefully things will change for the better.
As bad as my story is, unfortunately, there are those that
are worse and I just can’t figure out where things have
gone so wrong. My adoptive parents don’t know it, but I
understand everything they talk about and am horrified by
what I have heard. Take Tanner—he was the innocent
bystander of a domestic argument. In order for the
boyfriend to get back at his girlfriend, the boyfriend hit
Tanner on the top of the head with the back of a claw
hammer! Needless to say, Tanner was in bad shape when
he came into the Rescue, but after a long rehabilitation
period he was finally adopted to a loving family and is
doing great.
And what about Sadie? This poor ol’ gal came in with no
fur, mange, and just about every other affliction you can
imagine. Oh yeah, did I mention that she could barely
walk due to her hips being defective (sorry, Sadie). She is
over the mange, has most of her fur back, and has under
gone hip surgery. Her fur is taking its sweet time growing
back around the surgical site and she is very embarrassed
by this, but she’ll be O.K.
And then there is Campbell. She was a young gal up in
West Virginia. It seems she lived most of her life outside.
Some people saw her and tried to catch her but she was too
smart for that. Somehow Campbell got a soup can stuck to
the bottom of her muzzle. She couldn’t eat or drink but
was still on the run. Dozens of people formed groups to
try and catch her, but all to no avail.
Finally, after weeks of trying she was found in an
abandoned house, near death, with the soup can still on her
muzzle. After weeks of rehab (half her tongue had to be
removed due to the injury) by some dedicated volunteers
she did recover and is now doing fine. Oh, did I mention
that not one governmental agency would lend a hand to
help recover her! And your taxes pay for what?
There are unfortunately many more stories—some even
worse than these—but I think you get the point. But
getting back to my original question of how things have
gotten so bad for my kind… It never ceases to amaze me
that it was your kind that decided to make us “man’s best friend.” What happened? Speaking for all
of my kind, there is only one thing we ever
really wanted out of this deal and that was
to be LOVED. Maybe my kind is doing
something wrong and we just don’t realize
it. Some of us have been saved but many
more of us are still out there living a life of
hell. If anyone knows what my kind is
doing wrong, please let me know and I will
try to get the word out. And for those of
you that have helped save some of my kind,
THANK YOU. But don’t forget, foster
homes are always needed.
A parting thought: as a dog, I am a complex
creature, taken out of my element but trying
desperately to conform to your wishes and
likes. There are times when I do something
a bit unacceptable in your mind that is
perfectly normal behavior for me. Just like
you, I breathe the same air, occupy the
same space, and dream of things that only
my kind will ever understand. Take a
moment and look deep inside your Golden’s
eyes. What you will see is that he or she is
completely dependent on you. At the same
time, you will feel the warm breath of an
animal just looking for love and affection.
I know I’m preaching to the choir, but I just
had to get it off my Golden chest. Thank
you for your time.

Douglas from MD