A Big Red Dog

This is the Story of a

He came to us as a SEVA GRREAT foster – his name was Danny. The story we heard indicated that Danny’s owner had to deploy with the Army to the Middle East, and he had asked his sister to watch the dog while he was away. Unfortunately, Danny’s size and energy appeared to be too much for the service member’s sister, and she knew she had to give him up. She consulted with her brother by mail, and he asked her to make sure he went somewhere where there was no chance Danny would be put down. We don’t know how the sister found our rescue.

He came to our house in the winter of 2007, an Irish whiskey colored, two year old Golden Retriever pup, the latest intake of SEVA GRREAT. He was still very much a puppy in his exuberance and mannerisms, especially his attention span. He loved being with us and our Honorary Golden, Farley, an all-black Flat Coat Retriever who had been a big foster brother to many Goldens by this point. On occasion, Farley got a bit annoyed with the big red dog’s somewhat hyperactive escapades, but both of them frequently engaged in great games of chase, wrestling, and tug-of-war. The new foster dog took every opportunity to get attention and show affection to our whole family.

That was the first thirty-six hours of fostering. This energetic, joyful, playful, copper-red Golden Retriever managed, inside of a dayand-a-half, to absolutely charm Karin and I into knowing he was OUR dog now. He was our 27th foster dog with GRREAT, and our #2 foster failure. We immediately told the leadership at GRREAT about our decision. This 95 pound force of nature belonged to us now! There was one problem: my son Daniel, at that time about six years old. Karin and I realized we could not have a Daniel and a Danny in the same house. (By coincidence, about eight months ago my son told us he would rather be called Danny than Daniel.) It took a few days to figure out the new name for the new dog, eventually naming him after a small town in Idaho where my Dad grew up.

Emmett. We called the new guy Emmett. With his high speed entry into our lives, Emmett came to symbolize so much about the Goldens in GRREAT’s care all over the area. Wasn’t shy about walking up to people, leaning on them and asking for (nicely demanding) their attention. Ready to greet you at the door, usually with a toy. Never once put his nose onto the dinner table (though he could have done so without even lifting his chin), while he made SURE to let you know that he could see everything there with the famous expression, “I see you have food. I ALSO like food.”

In the early Emmett years, he frequently attended the Golden Days events we held in area Petsmart locations and other dog events. He didn’t seem to mind wearing the “Adopt Me” vests, even though his humans had to tell EVERYONE who stopped by that Emmett was a stand-in for another, adoptable dog who could not make it. Always the charmer, Emmett usually finished Golden Day Events with plenty of donated cash in his vest, a sign of folks who couldn’t say no to his request. Because of his size and his gentle approach to being with new people, he quickly gained

Big Red Dog

friends everywhere. After the first few years, we noticed people would come up to him and remark, “I remember you from last year!” Naturally, being a foster family, any dog of ours had to be a pal to any incoming foster dogs. If Emmett ever resented any of the dozens of dogs who came into our house, he hid it pretty well. Even when another canine might get too nosey or too playful, Emmett never snapped or growled in anger at any of them. Not just Golden Retrievers, but also many other fosters through Dogs on Deployment, a sort of matchup service which provides foster homes to the pets of military members being deployed. We found several canine fosters over the last few years to watch for our troops, all of them quickly found a fantastic pal in ol’ Emmett.

Of the dozens of “dogsitting” guests Emmet hosted, one of his favorite pals, Max, is a little mixed breed Terrier with a huge buddy-buddy link with Emmett. When Max’s owners go out of town, Emmet would host Max at his place for a few days or a week. Even though Emmett outweighed Max by at least a factor by Mike Pettinger of five, Emmett graciously let Max wrestle and beat on him constantly, pretending to let Max win the match (usually). We had to be careful if we were visiting over at our friend’s house, because if you said the name “Emmett,” Max’s ears would perk up, and he’d start jumping and looking around, looking for his buddy. Being a foster brother to other Goldens was his time to shine. Ready to play tug-of-war at any moment, Emmett always played fair and kept the game going for both as long as possible. All of the other Goldens and fosters clamored to do whatever Emmett was doing at that moment. So he taught many to do their business outside without us having to intervene. More than one Golden learned to patrol the back yard at his direction, and many followed his example of howling at sirens as the ambulances go past the house.

Emmett is rather infamous for his selection of fruit to eat in the fall. We have several persimmon trees in the back yard, and once Emmett realized that persimmons are really tasty, we’d see him jumping up to pull a bright orange persimmon from a tree and scarf it right down. Much to our dog’s flag-waving glee, our vet would not say that persimmons were bad for him. In actuality, persimmons have a lot of the same vitamins and minerals as pumpkin, which I know is good for dogs. So Emmett kept eating his daily allotment of persimmons, even though it cut into our persimmon sales profits!

With all beautiful relationships comes the day when one is no longer with the other. Our magnificent Emmett left us on January 2nd. The pain of his leaving is hard to bear. But then we remember what amazing fun and love we, and dozens of four-legged critters, shared with this wonderful Golden Retriever. He was never a show dog, but he certainly showed us what being a Golden is all about.

In memory of our buddy Emmett, we are donating six months of dog food budget and part of a persimmon season’s income to SEVA GRREAT.