On January 15, 2009 Copper and Sidney our two labs, Copper gold, Sidney Black became parents of nine beautiful little puppies. I should say eight little puppies and one not so little, at any rate 5 black and 4 were gold. Sidney was a wonderful mother but a few days after giving birth Sidney became very ill and wasn't able to feed her babies. While mother was sick that left us to feed and take care of them. I guess that's not entirely true, the word "us" was used a bit loosely. You see I nor did Patricia know that new born puppies need to be fed every 3 hours, not just day time hours either. So Patricia every 3 hours 7 days a week would bottle feed 9 very hungry babies. What Patricia did know though is, we had a deal, we would keep one puppy, a gold one, that was the deal. I guess when you spend that much time mothering something you grow to love them and apparently pick favorites. I wasn't aware.
The pups were born in a cage sitting in our bedroom but very soon our breakfast nook table was removed to make a "pup rearing room". A partition was made and fitted so none could escape from their area, yes I did that, thank you. In approximately 3 weeks all of the puppies could escape their confines pretty much at will, except for one, the one black one, the one much larger then the rest. He would make every attempt but never was able to pull himself over the 2X12 used for the partition. I soon heard him being referred to as "momma's big black boy".
Six weeks went by and people began coming to the house to look at the pups and in most cases if we were satisfied they passed our scrutiny, would buy one. On more than one occasion people would show up to look and if we didn't like how they acted, talked or looked we all the sudden didn't have any puppies to sell. Yes I said "looked" We figured if they didn't take care of themselves they probably wouldn't take very good care of a dog. In selling the last few of the puppies we took them a couple times to the Wal Mart parking lot and that's where I first noticed that Patricia would soon not honor our deal.
Every time some one would come to look at the remaining pups I noticed she had "momma's big black boy" behind her shielding him from sight, once I even caught her hiding him in the truck out of sight. When asked. Patricia would just say I guess nobody wants this one; we might have to keep him. We did. Soon Momma's "Big Black Boy" would be given the name, Angus. We also kept one of the gold ones, as per our deal, she would be Zoey.
I have had dogs all my life but until I met Patricia never had any that lived inside with us. That brings a whole new element to having dogs. They go from pets to becoming part of your family, a real part. As time went by Angus grew very fast in size and in our hearts. In less than a year Angus was bigger than both his mom and dad. With his size he began having problems, he developed a spine issue, that didn't really cause him to much trouble but eventually had him taking medicine for pain. Soon others would pop up. Since he was born he had a knot on his head as he got a little older we would have it surgically removed. Angus then developed allergies and continued hot spots all of which would require medicine. None of this would stop him or even slow him down from showing how much he loved his mom and dad. He had the biggest heart and was soon being referred as "momma's black angel". Just like not being able to get over the 2x12 partition as a baby he also couldn't or didn't think he could as a 130lb. adult, climb into our bed without a boost. None the less he always got his way upon hearing his bark or his very low growl, one of us would head his way. I called him our special needs child, Patricia didn't like that so much, and she would reply NO, he's momma's black angel.
On July 11, 2012 Angus was laid to rest on the farm that he had lived every day of his life. The last person he saw or heard was his momma as he truly became "momma's big black angel.