08/22/2026
Behind the Leash..
When I first started caring for Goose, she was young.
We spent a lot of time working together on our walks. There were things in the world she wasn't quite sure about yet.
Including the big, bad yellow monster.
Also known as the school bus.
Little by little, we worked on it.
A little farther down the street.
A little more confidence.
A little less fear.
And then I lost my girl, Delaney.
Delaney was my golden retriever, and losing her to cancer left a hole in me that I didn't know what to do with.
But I still had Goose.
I remember watching her begin to make progress on those walks. She was becoming braver and venturing farther and farther down the street.
And I remember thinking so clearly...
My girl Delaney is right here helping her.
I really believed it.
Maybe it was because everything Delaney had taught me about loving a golden was still inside me.
Because somewhere in those walks with Goose, something else was happening too.
I was realizing that losing Delaney hadn't taken away my ability to love another golden.
I still had so much love to give.
Goose showed me that.
And it wasn't long after losing Delaney that Gingerbear became part of our family.
We were blessed with six years with Gingerbear.
Then this past year, we received news I desperately wish we hadn't.
Cancer.
Again.
Eventually, I had to say goodbye to another one of my girls.
And Goose was still there.
The young golden I once helped become brave had become one of the places I could go when I needed comfort.
She has been there through the loss of both of my girls.
She was there when my heart was learning that it could love another golden after Delaney.
And she was still there years later when that heart broke again over Gingerbear.
Goose never replaced either of them.
She was never supposed to.
She simply showed me that loving another dog doesn't take anything away from the ones who came before.
More recently, another golden I had grown to love through my work passed away.
And once again, I found myself grieving a golden.
Somewhere in all of it — Delaney, Gingerbear, Goose, and the other goldens who have found their way into my life through the years — all of that love and all of that loss eventually found its way into something else.
A song.
I called it “There’s Something About a Golden.”
Because there really is.
I don't know that I'll ever be able to completely explain what it is about them.
I just know I've been lucky enough to feel it.
Maybe that's one of the greatest things our animals teach us.
Love isn't something we use up.
Sometimes the love one dog leaves behind becomes part of the love we're able to give the next one.
All those years ago, I thought I was teaching a young Goose how to be brave.
Looking back now...
I think she was teaching me the same thing.
📷 captured through my lens
