Brandy Bear, or Brandy as we called her, was our pure bred Golden Retriever. She was born on March 4, 1994 and we actually went to the farm where we got her the day after she was born... of course, we didn't know which one she was!!! We went back a few weeks later and picked the "runt" of the litter... there were only two females that hadn't been bought, and we chose the smaller one. A few weeks after that, we got to bring Brandy home. My mom held her the whole way home.

Brandy didn't have a super exciting life, she had fun, layed around the house a lot and was just the most friendly dog around. She would greet everyone with her tail wagging dangerously fast, and it in turn would cause her whole body to wag!! She never bit anyone, and the only time she would bark was when she wanted to go outside to go to the bathroom, when she wanted her dinner, and when you held the vaccum or a tube up at her.

Our neighbours older dog was Brandy's best friend, but she had to be put down... when they got a new dog, she acted like Brandy was her mother, and whenever she came outside, she would always come looking for Brandy. Brandy was loved by animals and humans alike.

She was never a super healthy dog, my mom said she was a lemon! She had some problems, but they were always fixable. She was over weight, but no matter what we tried to do, we couldn't get her weight down (of couse, the fact that we fed her table scraps and such didn't help much)... but she was happy and that's all that mattered, the vet said.

Over the last couple of months of her life, she began to get very sick. We had to give her Chemotherapy pills to help control the disease she had... we're not sure if they worked. She would seem better, but she wasn't eating anything anymore, and that wasn't like her and then when we lowered her dose of Chemo, she would get sick again. She was in a lot of pain and we started giving her pain shots daily... that seemed to help her... she was looking better but she still wasn't eating :( Then the vet decided to take her off the medications, the Chemo was causing Brandy's fur to fall out and we were hoping that she would be able to eat again. No such luck, she became sick again. The vet said she could refer us to a specialist, but that would cost us thousands and thousands of dollars. There was nothing more we could do for Brandy.

On July 2, 2002 we made the painful decision to put Brandy down. We all knew it was for the better, but it still hurt. We all said a painful good-bye and then my parents took her to the vet. That was the last time I ever saw Brandy... But we know it was for the better because my parents said that the vet had told them that it was Brandy's time, she was much sicker than we thought.

And so, for a dog that was loved so much, I have created this photo memorial.

	Brandy laying around on the family room floor... this is usually where you would find her!
Brandy sitting pretty infront of the house on a beautiful summer day when she was a couple of years old.
	Brandy having a bath... once she got too big to use the tubs inside, we turned our kiddie pool into her "bathtub"!
Brandy with her brand new Christmas doll. She loved that doll, and many times we had to sew it back up because she would rip it at the seems.
	Brandy just laying around in the side lawn.
Brandy laying in that same side lawn.
	Brandy laying in the shade of our van one hot summer day.
Brandy in the family room chewing on her rope toy.
	Brandy laying around on the front deck of our cottage.
Brandy laying around on the kitchen floor... if she wasn't in the family room laying around, then you could usually find her laying around in the kitchen!!
	Brandy wearing one of my sister's winter hats... she wasn't too happy about wearing it, but she looks so cute!!!
A close up.
	A family Christmas picture... Brandy was in a room in the house that she wasn't normally allowed into, and she was very interested in the cat!
Yet another bath in Brandy's "bathtub"!!!
	My cousins, my sisters and I had made a buffet dinner, and decided to photo it, and Brandy just looked right sitting infront of it... I think she was waiting for us to give her some!!
Brandy and Dusty sniffing the bunny. It wasn't our bunny, we were bunny sitting it, and neither of them were quite sure what to make of the bunny.
	Brandy and the neighbour's dog Timmy playing in someone's yard.
Brandy and my mom sitting by the lake at our cottage.
	Brandy begging for food like she usually did when it came to meal time... or even when you were just opening a bag.
Baby Brandy laying in her crate... when she still fit in it!!
	My mom holding Baby Brandy.
My sister holding Baby Brandy.
	Baby Brandy sleeping on the family room floor as we watched TV.
My sister holding Baby Brandy.