~George, Bill, Nicole and Chloe~
~Bill and George~
In Memory of George
My name is Bill, and George was my buddy for the past 2 years. Regretfully and very heartbroken, I’m send this letter to everyone in the GRRIN organization to inform them that George is no longer with us. His demons finally got the best of him. I remember seeing George on the GRRIN web site about 4 or 5 years ago and thought what a great Golden he would be for me, but I traveled too much for work to get a pet. Then a few years later the traveling stopped and I was ready for a Golden. About the same time, GRRIN sent an urgent email asking for help with an old senior – George. I picked up George from Dan and Cheryl (foster parents) on a Thursday evening in September, and he came home to his new forever home.
It took about 3 or 4 weeks for George to get settled in to the routine, but once he figured it out, he was perfect. I went everywhere with George: my parents, my friends, down to the range, even out shopping. He loved to go for rides. If it wasn’t too cold or too hot, George was going with me. We even went on vacation to Bella Vista, Arkansas and went for a couple of boat rides. It was the greatest trip for him – 6 hours in the front seat. He loved every minute of the vacation. He played with a couple of other GRRIN buddies, Toby and Razzi down there.
Dinner (food!!) was always a big moment for George, he would jump, bark, run around. It was so funny to watch him eat; food was like a new adventure every time. His enthusiasm for food never faded. Last June, I meet Nicole (now my wife) at work. We dated and got engaged in a short time frame, but she had a chocolate Lab (Chloe) and two cats (Miles and Zipper). As Nicole and I were planning our future together, I was concerned about George and living with another dog and cats.
When I got George from GRRIN, they said he would “eat cats”, so this concerned me. Nicole and I did several meet and greets with Chloe and the two cats. Chloe and George were a perfect match. They were girlfriend and boyfriend, they played, they rolled around, they slept right by each other. As for the cats, it took a few times, but George warmed up to the two and they lived happily together. George couldn’t have wanted anything else, everyday grandpa would come over and visit with George, Chloe, and the cats. It was a great life for the “old man” of the house.
His last two years were absolutely wonderful. But…. From time to time, his seizures would act up and then would go away. As time went on his seizures ended up getting worse and worse. He would go after his behind, and as a result he would catch his tail. On several occasions he’d tore his tail up pretty good. As a result of this haunting he was experiencing, he had bitten my wife Nicole, Grandpa Jim, and myself. At nights, he really had a difficult time. George was almost unable to relax and sleep through the whole night. He would growl and go after his back side in the dark. He wouldn’t get to sleep; he was up at 1a.m. and 4a.m. We tried meds for pain, to relax him, and other things, but there was something going on in his head and we will never know what. I would even lay with him on the floor at nights hoping he could feel safe, but not even me there to protect him could ease what was going on. It would break our hearts to see him like this, because there was nothing we could do to calm him down. We were in question about having children coming over during the wedding. We didn’t know when he would have a bad moment or if the cats were safe. On, April 15th, we took George in to go to the Rainbow Bridge. 
~Chloe and George~
