This Blog recounts the memories of our Very Special and Great Friend, Bradford.

11/29/1997 - 06/29/2009

Bradford was born on November 29th, 1997 @ Edgehill Golden Retrievers, Plympton, MA.



His mother, Robin had a litter of 12 beautiful puppies for whom she lovingly cared and nursed. However, she developed an abnormal nipple which was cancerous and it was surgically removed. Her milk production suffered and the litter then had to be hand-fed from a bottle. The puppies stayed with their mother at Edgehill for an additional period in order to "fatten them up" until at 9 weeks they were ready!

On Sunday, February 1st, we eagerly drove from Salem to Plympton to select our puppy. We were asked if we had decided on a male or a female pup. Audrey wanted another girl but I wanted a boy this time. After examining and playing with a female and two male pups. We decided on one of the boy pups.
(We previously had two girl dogs. Misty was a wonderful Labrador/Golden mix who had since crossed over the "Rainbow Bridge", and our Lolly, a beautiful 11 yr old Golden who was still with us who had whelped two litters with 11 pups total).

On the ride home with the pup nestled in my lap, we set about trying to come up with a fitting name for this little yellow ball of fur. We tossed around a few names but none seemed to catch on with us. (I thought about our previous vacation to England where we traced Audrey's family roots. We travelled to the city of Bradford in the north in order to find the graves where her great grandfather's family were interred.) When I suggested we name him Bradford, Audrey smiled and said she thought that sounded like a noble and fitting name. I thought so too.

Now we thought about introducing him to Lolly.

She had been a good mother to her puppies and I felt this should be a shoo-in.