In February 2002 my father Greg was in congestive heart failure, he survived. Somewhere between the doctor visits, procedures, medications and scares he lost his spunk. In 2006 we said good bye to our trusty little Brittany spaniel Brittany, she was 14 and the house wasn’t the same without her. It took along time for my dad to get over her loss and he knew that when he was ready he needed another Brittany.
One day out of the blue in the summer of 2011 he called me up and said “I want a dog, I want a girl Brittany, a liver and white Brittany.” Ok I said and off to the internet I went. Rescue was the only option I considered. Luckily the American Brittany rescue was the first thing that popped up in my search and they found my dad the perfect Brittany named Cricket.
My dad and I drove down to Cedar Rapids to get Cricket. We had decided to change her name to Ruby. We met in a parking lot and I’ll never forget the moment we met her. Ruby let my dad put his leash on her, she jumped out of the car, licked him, and jumped into my car, she sat down on the front seat and looked at us like “let’s go home.” In that moment she claimed us and we claimed her.
Ruby and my dad go every where together. They go down to the summer house, rides in the car, to the dog park, and walks on the trail so she can play in the creek. He packs her a sandwich and gives her beef sticks so she won’t run away from him. Ruby is never far from his side.
My dad has trained Ruby to wait for the mailman, he will say “Ruby mails coming.” She runs out to the front room, sits in her chair nose to the window waiting for the mailman to arrive. He drops a treat in the slot and it gives her something to bark at beside the squirrel that’s been taunting her for months.
Ruby isn’t the one who got rescued that day, it was my Dad. Ruby rescued my dad. She brought him back to us, his spunk and zest for life had returned. He is the healthiest he had been in over 10 years and it is all because of a Brittany.
Ruby is a dog with a bed side manner, it’s like she knows, she will nurse you back to health by never leaving your side. She has the most soulful eyes that when you look into them, you know everything is going to be all right. Ruby is more than a rescue dog, she is a companion, she is family, and mostly she is the medicine that my dad needed.
This little spunky rambunctious Brittany rescued my dad and for that words cannot express how much your organization means to us.
AmandaJean Beaulieu