From MuskokaUnlimited.com: Life Can be Golden with a Rescue
They are a true gift to any dog lover – or animal lover – in the world. Often sporting smiles, wagging tails and a propensity for human affection, Golden Retrievers have the looks and the characters to charm almost anyone.
Almost is the key word in the previous sentence. Even though they are such beloved creatures, Golden Retrievers also happen to be the breed that needs the most support from mankind.
Golden Rescue is one of, if the, largest single-breed rescue group in Canada. Since their inception over 33 years ago, they have rescued almost 5,000 Golden Retrievers (Goldens for short).
Indeed, in 2022 alone (2023’s full count was not yet available) there were 525 Goldens rescued by this charitable organization alone.
Muskoka Unlimited had a chance to catch up with Golden Rescue co-chair Viive Tamm recently to discuss why so many of these beautiful creatures need help.
“Every single story is story is different,” she explains. “Sometimes the reasons for surrendering are not horrible reasons. They’re reasons that are sad perhaps, such as older people moving to a home and they can’t take their dog with them. Sometimes a family member passes away and they have to relocate the dogs because other family members can’t take them.”
Other times people surrender their Goldens because of newborns that take up too much time, allergies that develop, or moving to a new country for work.
“Those are all surrenders that I would call understandable,” says Tamm. “Then there are other ones.”
These “other ones” range from ignorance to idiocy and in some cases are downright criminal. It’s hard not to choke up when listening to some of them.
On the ignorant side of the pendulum are owners who contact veterinarians (vets) to put their dog down because of a broken leg, or because the owner is moving . . . in each case, the vet knows there is nothing terminally wrong with their dog.
“And the vet says to us, we don’t want to do that, would you take the Golden,” says Tamm. “And we say, ‘of course we will,’ and then we pay to get them fixed and then we put them in our program.”
Goldens also find their way into the rescue when animal control services raid a puppy mill or a backyard breeder; or when animal shelters call to help alleviate the pressure by taking their Goldens into the rescue program.
Tamm goes on to discuss more heart wrenching stories such as a pair of Goldens (aged 12 and 13) who were found in a northern Montreal forest; they were dumped there and whoever did it cut the dogs’ microchips out before leaving them.
But that’s not even the worst situation.
Read the full story and see more amazing Golden photos at: https://muskokaunlimited.com/2023/12/07/life-can-be-golden-with-a-rescue/
