He put in his request, asking the volun- teers to call him if one was surrendered. As his search for a Golden Retriever continued, Bruce looked into a local breeder who had advertised puppies for sale. Visiting, he picked one out for him- self, left a deposit and would return when the puppy was ready. On the day Bruce was to drive to
Lancaster to pick up his new puppy, he stopped by the shelter just one more time. “I remember it clearly, as I was walking down the hallway. Before going around the corner, I prayed to God before peeking around the corner, and I swear, if I’m lying I’m dying — there he was, a Golden Retriever.” Bruce adopted the dog, but would have to wait a few days before taking him home. The night before Bruce was to go
back and pick up the dog at the shelter, it began to snow. He planned on arriving early at the shelter the next morning, so he decided to put chains on his tires that night so as not to be delayed. “I didn’t want him spending another night in the shelter alone, without me,” said Bruce. “I was the first to arrive at the shelter the following morning, and I was like a kid in a candy store; so excited about my new dog. We were ready to go home.” A couple of days later, Bruce still had
not named the dog. He was looking for the perfect name for a dog he would later credit for saving his life. “I would know it when it came to me,” he said. As Bruce was sitting at the bar of a local pub with some friends one evening, subconscious- ly staring at the liquor bottles displayed on the shelf, something peculiar hap- pened, and Bruce took it as another sign. A beam of light shown perfectly on the bottle of Dewar’s, clearly standing out from all of the other bottles. And from that night on, the Golden Retriever that Bruce considered a gift from God, would be known as Dewey. As Bruce continues telling his story,
he shakes his head, smiles, points upward and says, “The man upstairs, He sure does have a sense of humor.” He recalls that a few years after
Dewey arrived, his landlord, who also had a Golden Retriever, paid him a visit. “I have something to show you,” the land- lord told Bruce, and asked him to come outside. Just a few weeks before, Bruce
54 THE NEW BARKER
Top left: Dewey in a flowerpot. Top right: The always-studious Dewey. Above: Pals, Jackson (l) and Dewey (r).
had mentioned to his landlord that he’d wanted to get another dog as a compan- ion to Dewey. There, in the bed of his landlord’s
truck was a Golden Retriever. “He told me that he’d pulled off 1-95 into a rest station and saw the dog sitting next to a tree. As he approached, he could see the dog was tied to the tree with a sign around his neck that read, ‘I need a home.’ It was meant to be,” said Bruce. The dog would become known as Jackson, after one of Bruce’s favorite musicians, Jackson Brown. They were an inseparable trio, going
everywhere together for another six years. “Those two were meant to be together. When Jackson came into our
lives, I could see Dewey, who was getting older, perk up. Then, when Jackson became ill and began having seizures, it was Dewey who helped him.” Jackson died at 14 years of age. Anyone who has loved and lived
with dogs, knows that they come into our lives for a short period, perhaps to give us something or teach us about what’s important. For 16 years, Bruce was everything to Dewey. “He would do any- thing for me, anything I asked of him,” recalled Bruce. Then one day, Dewey, who could no
longer walk, looked up at Bruce. “I heard him say to me, ‘Bruce, it’s
not about you anymore. It’s about me now.’”
www.TheNewBarker.com
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