A passing at Brier

[Gina Heitz <brier@oregonsbest.com>]

This morning we lost Brandy, our dear sweet Cocker Spaniel.  She was our 
first "off breed", non golden rescue in 1994...  Both George and I have 
nothing but fond memories of Brandy and how much joy she brought into our 
lives and how we enriched her life...

Brandy came to be part of the Brier gang when she came in for grooming one 
day.  She was a mess a solid matt.  I spent 9 hours de matting her and 
getting her to look like a Cocker, well sort of...  I was a new groomer at 
the time so I took the time to de matt her as apposed to just trimming her 
close as I probably would have done now.

   The people that had been caring for Brandy, she was not their dog 
either, could only provide and outdoor run for her and when I took her home 
(they were away for the evening), I could not put her in that dog run.  I 
left her in the car, came home worked up the best set of tears I could for 
Georges benefit, and had him get in the car and go over to her old house 
with me and asked him to put her in the run.  Knowing he would not be able 
to do so either.  While he was  trying to think of reasons why he should, I 
wrote a note and slipped it in the door that Brandy was with us and to call 
when they returned.  The rest of that story is history...

Brandy will be missed, but to know we did what was best for her is more 
important than clinging onto her selfishly.  As many of you know Brandy was 
totally blind had been for several years now she also had a bad back, IBD 
(intestinal problems), was dysplastic in her hips and most recently she had 
started to have seizures as well as she was very disorientated a lot of the 
time.

She enjoyed many days on the farm before she lost her sight she roamed the 
farm often all day long never leaving the berry patch.  She was quite the 
huntress and managed to often get herself all full of burs...  Never did 
Brandy object to grooming, Cockers can be quite nasty.  Brandy never 
snapped at anyone until she lost her sight and she didn't like the other 
dogs in her face.  Before she lost her sight she use to go for rides on 
Rocky's tail, they were the best of friends.  So now we send Brandy to be 
with Rocky...

Gina & George