Quote:I swore I was taking today off (we had to put down our faithful Golden of 13 years today and I'm just heart-broken). And yet.... here I am. I swear my laptop is permanently attached to me - it just refused to stay home this morning!
eclectica,
I am deeply sorry for your loss. I have 2 Golden's myself 1 who is a very special dog to our family, OT but here's why 1 of my Golden's is so special:
My youngest daughter who is now 7 was born in November of 99'. Our first Golden (shadow) was born in October of 98'. My wife had a normal pregnancy with my youngest and for the first year my daughter had a pretty much normal childhood. Normal issues with teeth etc. Around the time my daughter was 11 months old my wife and I noticed that shadow was spending a lot of time around my daughter. Shadow would follow her from room to room, Shadow would sleep in the doorway to my daughters room. We noticed when my daughter would play with Shadow that shadow was acting almost like a seeing eye dog. Shadow was and still is my daughters protector.
One day we noticed that Shadow was barking just as she always would if another dog was around or something. What got our attention was that Shadow was barking behind my daughter ( 12 months old at this point). My daughter showed no reaction to Shadow's barking where as my older daughter would have at the same age. To sum it up my wife and I tested my daughter that evening to see if we could get a reaction out of her with loud sounds, most times that evening there was no reaction from her but sometimes there were. The next morning we took her to the doctor and asked to have her hearing tested, now keep in mind there is no easy test to test a 1 year old for hearing. The doctor drew no conclusions but recomended that we take her to NYC for testing. We managed to get an appointment in NYC for about a month later and believe me we were lucky to get one that quick. You can imagine the month my wife and I went through not knowing can she hear or can't she hear.
Well we went to the appointment and our worst fears were confirmed, our youngest was born deaf. I will spare you the details of the next 6 months or so but we managed to get her into a few programs and she recieved her Cochlear implant in September of 01'. She has been in school since age 14 months (special programs) and now after the countless hours of schooling and what naught she hears just like you and I. She attends our local mainstream school and excels in everything.
Mandatory testing was adopted in NY state 1/01/2000 so since she was born November of 99' we missed knowing from birth by less then 2 months. If it wasn't for Shadow we may have missed it by a longer period of time and there would have been a profound effect on my daughters ability to pick up speech since we learn to respond to speech at about 9 or 10 months of age.
Did Shadow sense that she couldn't hear we will never know but all the signs point to that. That is why Golden's are so special to me and my family, we dreed the day that Shadow departs us.
let the truth be told
u1it4less - "it's all in the name.."
Happy B-day Sky!!Â
 Even though I am fairly new to the boards a b-day is still a b-day and deserves a congrats!!
Eclectica: I am sorry about your loss! We lost our cat we had for about 15 years right before x-mas 2005, so I can fully understand. It is like a family member. We still haven't gotten any new pets.
New Quote in defense of FH:
Quote:They were actually paying more than 9.95 a month. They had a showcase & featured store (totally about 50.00), over 3,000 items listed in their store, and getting 0 hits/traffic.
Many people have left the E & gone back to the E. The fees are high, but they do a lot of advertising. So, no matter how you look at it, people come to these kinds of sites because they expect traffic because there are a lot of stores.
Is there people from the E who might want WP to fail? Probably. But to think it is some huge conspiracy is just nonsense in my opinion. There is always 2 sides to every story.
After having zero traffic they then had an entire thread deleated because they were questioning traffic. That might have been what sent them over the edge.
Some people feel if they have to do all the promoting and advertising, they are just going to do it to their own sites.
For them they must have felt it wasn't worth the money. It is their business and I don't think any less of them and wish them and all the other sellers who have left the best and many sales!!
xxxxx
Any bets on how long it will last?Â
Truth - thank you for sharing that story! When I was growing up, my dad bred Goldens and we always had at least 1 or 2. They are amazing creatures - so loving and very smart. I'm not surprised at all that Shadow picked up on the fact that your daughter had problem. They are very intuitive animals. I am so happy to hear that your story has such a happy ending!
Nala (my daughter, then 4, just HAD to name her that, lol!) was very special because she was born the day of my grandfather's funeral. In a way, it was always a comforting thing as it reminded me that life ends but new life goes on.
Today all these memories of her & my children came flooding back while I held her. My older son was only 6 months old when we got her and I remember them playing on the floor together when they were both just babies. She was gentle even then, somehow she knew not to play rough. Today my little boy is almost 13 and that dog never left his side when he was home. Telling him she was gone was probably the single most painful thing I've done as a parent.
Karma, you're so right. They are like family members and its very hard to let go, even when you know its the right thing to do.
OK - enough sadness and OT.....
Ray - kiss my a$$Â
Wow, I think I feel better!
And the reply (from none other than our hero PS):
Quote:TMI on the other subject, I know that they weren't getting the traffic and sales that they were hoping for right off the bat, but I know for a fact that it was better than zero because I personally spent a total of $221.68 with them within a very short period of time. I also was really trying to help with some advertising ideas and strategies, and had just started to do some actual promoting on their behalf. They just didn't leave the listings up long enough for buyers to find them, probably not even long enough to be indexed in search engines. And I probably shouldn't say any more on the subject.
Ya know, for hating naysayers, trolls and infiltrating worms so much, she has to be one of the nosiest, most negative people I've seen yet on here. PS - you obviously don't know the whole story so mind your own f#$%ing business. (Oops... did I say that out loud?)
eclectica We are so sorry about your puppy. It is very hard to lost your best friend. Our Rot mix is 15 I know that day will be coming. FH and "T"PG
Shortest career of a WP store in it's history.Â
Opened; never listed; closed 2-3 days later.Â
I wonder what scared them off?Â
http://www.wagglepop.com/bin/auction/vie...w_feedback&userID=13096
Look for the debut of 'Pattys Knick Knack Shack' waiting in the wings for the next dedicated seller to go poof.
[quote author=The Pet Guy link=topic=3775.msg54281#msg54281 date=1179794860]
eclectica We are so sorry about your puppy. It is very hard to lost your best friend. Our Rot mix is 15 I know that day will be coming. FH and "T"PG
[/quote]
Thank you! I reallyÂ
my fellow TTers. If anyone needs to know what kind of people are here, they need look no further than the past couple pages of posts. I'm proud to be a part of such a compassionate, caring (and often hysterically funny, side splitting, coffee spew inducing) group.
[quote author=sherrand link=topic=3775.msg54282#msg54282 date=1179795613]
Shortest career of a WP store in it's history.Â
Opened; never listed; closed 2-3 days later.Â
I wonder what scared them off?Â
http://www.wagglepop.com/bin/auction/vie...w_feedback&userID=13096
Look for the debut of 'Pattys Knick Knack Shack' waiting in the wings for the next dedicated seller to go poof.
[/quote]
I'm so glad you keep track of these Sherry; I'm totally lost with all the openings & closings!
[quote author=eclectica link=topic=3775.msg54283#msg54283 date=1179795652]
[quote author=The Pet Guy link=topic=3775.msg54281#msg54281 date=1179794860]
eclectica We are so sorry about your puppy. It is very hard to lost your best friend. Our Rot mix is 15 I know that day will be coming. FH and "T"PG
[/quote]
Thank you! I reallyÂ
my fellow TTers. If anyone needs to know what kind of people are here, they need look no further than the past couple pages of posts. I'm proud to be a part of such a compassionate, caring (and often hysterically funny, side splitting, coffee spew inducing) group.
[/quote]
Lets put our arms around each other and have a group hug.