An update from this photographer's private life.............

As you all know the loss of our beautiful Lacey girl (our Golden Retriever) hit my husband and me pretty hard, so in order to make sense of her early departure from this life I decided that we should give another dog that was in some shelter the love we now can't give her........of course she will forever be in our hearts, but I strongly believe when a doggie baby dies the only way to make sense of that is to rescue another doggie that might otherwise be put to sleep. Quite by accident I found a Golden/Lab in a shelter in NC.  The shelter was incredible helpful to make this adoption happen specially since we live 6 hours from Fayetteville, NC. If you are asking yourself, why did she adopt a dog from so far away........the answer is simple.........I actually saw a 9 year Golden on a Golden Rescue page in Georgia, but those people could not see the LOVE I have in my heart and made it impossible for me to even be considered to adopt that little lady. I did have some wonderful people from other rescues looking around (YES, I did want another Golden or Golden Mix) and they tried really hard when one night quite by accident I came across this little one year old girl in NC. After the negativity of the Golden Rescue I was so pleasantly surprised how lovely the people of this shelter were. This is a high intake shelter and also a kill shelter, but the love and concern those people showed me for their dogs was incredible. They tried everything in the book to help me specially from so far away to give this little girl a chance for another life. They even recommended a hotel to me so I would be really close to the Veterinarian that spayed our new baby for us. A big huge thank you to Friends of Cumberland County and to Shelly Bryant for all the help they extended to my husband and myself. If you are looking to adopt a dog please keep this shelter in mind and also check out Releash Atlanta...........Kristin from Releash Atlanta is another special and wonderful person.........Rev. Deanna Lancaster connected me with this wonderful lady............a big thank you to you too Deanna.

We really wanted to adopt a senior dog, but sometimes things in life happen the way they are suppose to happen...........

Steve and I decided I would drive over to NC to pick our new baby up and after some thinking we decided it would be better for all if he stayed with our other babies so they would not be to upset when we came home with a new doggie. They are always really well taken care of by our incredible doggie sitter Julie if we have to go out of town on a job, but this time we thought it better that one of us stayed home. I had the idea to ask Laura our associate and friend if she would consider going with me on this long drive. We left Sunday late morning and we spend the night so we could pick up Charmin on Monday morning and then make the drive back home.

After a long car ride we arrived home. Charmin was a perfect angel all the way home spending most of the drive (like 99% cuddling up to me and giving kisses) on the backseat with me, thank you Laura for driving to give her and me time to bond. After arriving home Steve brought Rosie (our lab) into the yard for them to meet, that went great..........Rosie (we adopted... her last year) was a perfect Angel. Now the introduction to Max (our main man cat) was a little bit of a different story...........his hackles went up.......he looked like the mean cat from the wicked witch, so in turn Charmin put her hackles up and charged forward, I told her no and she came right back (she was on the leash) sat in front of me like to say I am sorry mommy. Long story short Max followed us all over the yard strutting his stuff to let her know that the yard was HIS..........but all went well, he did the same when we adopted Rosie and every time we took her out he came closer and closer and eventually they did accept each other, so our hope is the same will happen. Next stop.........bringing Rosie and Charmin into the house.........worked great. They even started to play, but mommy only let it go so far, Charmin just had an operation so until the staples come out, please guys take it easy. Mousey has to take all this in from the safety of her crate home, she will get her chance tomorrow........I thought that Charmin had enough changes to take in for one day and tomorrow is another day ........after all we traveled for almost 7 hours and I thought why push it. Steve is not to sure if he likes the name Charmin............he started to call her Ginger we shall see how that goes......she is really sweet and soft like Charmin, but who has a dog named after toilette tissues........I guess he is afraid that if he goes outside calling her name that our neighbors here in the mountains who are ever so helpful would bring us some toilette tissue because he was in distress Anyway the name part is still open...... One thing is for sure.......the staff at the shelter in NC and at the Veterinarian are so right, she is a total sweetheart. By the way, Laura is not only my friend but also our associate photographer, so she recorded the whole thing and as soon as she sends me some of the files I will post some photos........thank you again Laura for doing that too.