Thank you for being there for us and for Oliver in such a meaningful way yesterday evening. As I told you, Oliver was the result of another heartfelt story, when we had another Oliver for a short period of time from July of 2008 to April of 2009. My heart longed so badly to re-capture the soul of this first Oliver, Oliver Henry, that we then adopted a male Cockalier (Marcel) and a female Cockalier (Highland) in 2009 and they had their first litter of puppies over Memorial Day weekend of 2011. Oliver Ivory was one of six pups from that litter and interestingly, we were unable to find anyone to adopt him; so, although we did not intend to keep a puppy from the litter, we did, and so, the rest is twelve years and well over 1,000 photographs taken of him with friends, and family, and of course ourselves.
Oliver was brave, fierce at times in the animal kingdom outside, independent, and very very beautiful with a distinctive long nose, gorgeous reddish hair and irresistible freckles. He became a very good communicator after he lost his eyesight due to diabetes when he was nine years old. I will never forget the night that he became blind, how he jumped on the bed with me, woke me up and I saw that he was moving his head to and fro as he tried to understand himself why he could no longer see. He learned to be very vocal about his needs, mostly whenever he wanted food or treats, or needed to be let out, or let inside.
We could always tell whenever he was feeling content by the way he would lay either on the kitchen floor or on one of our seats with his front paws crossed in front of him, which made him look very regal, almost kingly. I can’t imagine ever having another dog as beautiful as he was. As we were looking at all of our photos of him last night, we noticed that almost every member of our family had had their picture taken with him at one time or another during his life. Oliver was born on May 30, 2011 and left this earth for his Heavenly home with the gentle, comforting assistance of Dr. Rikh; whose help and comfort we will always be grateful.
With great appreciation for you and for your ministry –
Liz Cook and Traci Shaw
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