We lost out Golden a few months ago at almost 10 years old. He was acting somewhat normal that night and the next morning was in obvious distress. He had a large inter cyst rupture on his liver and he was bleeding to death internally. There was no remedy and he was put down just a couple of hours later. Hes at the vet every 6 months is entire life and there was never a diagnosis for what was coming from the vet but maybe we should have know ourselves. It wasn't until after this event and doing some reading about the disease that killed him that I found out that 60% of all Goldens die of cancer in the US, along with labs and German Sheppards.
"About 60 percent of all Golden Retrievers will die from cancer – 57 percent of females and 66 percent of males. The two most common types of cancer in this breed are hemangiosarcoma and lymphoma."
This was a devastating event for our family especially my wife, the two of them where together constantly all day every day on our property while she would be outside gardening or doing whatever. He was a very important emotional support to her.
We have always had a dog in the family for nearly all of the 45 years we have been married, certainly the last 35 years straight. After we lost Charlie there was no discussion of getting another dog, My wife and my granddaughters, they live with us said no more dogs, it hurts too much when you lose them, I didn't disagree at all, I still tear up thinking about him.
So to my surprise 7 weeks ago my wife comes to me and says she wants to get another dog, another Golden, but wants it to be different looking than Charlie. So we are getting an English Creme Golden. The mother just arrived in the US from Austria 8 weeks ago, already pregnant and had her 8 puppies 3 weeks ago. We have the 2nd pick of the males and will be picking our our future family member at the end of December and bringing him home in mid Jan.
I learned a lot about Golden's after we lost Charlie and reading about his cancer. The breed originated in Scotland. The English Creme is almost white. The cancer rate occurrence rate of the European bloodlines is half the rate of the US bloodline Goldens. So we have a new baby coming home and we are happy to do it all over again with a new member of the family.
