by MEREDITH M. GRIFFITH
Sounder contributor
When 10-year-old “Rusty” was adopted by Sandy Playa and Carl Burger, the golden retriever was morbidly obese, tipping the scales at 103 pounds. The Orcas couple immediately started him on a diet, but weren’t exactly sure what to do about exercise when Rusty came up with his own plan.
Carl was leading a morning kayak tour from their home at Spring Bay, near Obstruction Pass, when he looked back to see a rotund, furry face bobbing in the sea behind him.
“At first I thought it was a harbor seal,” Carl laughs.
It was Rusty’s first plunge into water aerobics. Saltwater would prove the perfect remedy to help restore the dog to shape.
“After that, we took him on morning swims,” says Carl. “We’d let him follow us for the first 100 yards or so, then guide him back in. It was good physical therapy.”
Rusty was just one of a long line of lucky second-chance canines Sandy and Carl have adopted to live out the rest of their lives surrounded by acres of hilly forest, a quiet bay and frisky squirrels.
And tennis balls. Lots of them.
Retired park rangers from California’s Santa Cruz Mountains, Carl and Sandy operated the five-bedroom Spring Bay Inn as a bed and breakfast from 1993 to 2008. From the beginning, guests fell in love with the inn’s resident goldens, starting with Carson, a retired guide dog.
“They just kinda became part of the Spring Bay family,” says Sandy. “A lot of people came back on the strength of the retrievers. Carson even got his own Christmas cards.”
One couple who worked near a tennis court would mail him cardboard boxes full of tennis balls, which Carson liked to peel and carry around.
“In 2,000 years when archaeologists are looking over Orcas Island, they’re going to figure there must have been a tennis court around here someplace,” laughs Carl, adding, “Most of our dogs have been golden ‘retainers.’”
Some dogs were rescued from shelters; others were “career change” or retired guide dogs who had led lives of service for the blind or others in need of a helping paw. Sandy raised a guide puppy as a child in 4H, and was thrilled to be given the dog back when a minor health problem made him unsuitable for the work.
“You get to take your dog places that dogs don’t normally get to go, so we would go to the movies with our dog,” she grins mischievously. “I highly recommend it.”
Guide-dogging is a rigorous profession, and after six or seven years of duty the dogs are retired to rest and lead a dog’s life.
Others don’t make it past training.
“They get dropped for small, obscure reasons – a skin rash, reaction to loud noises,” said Michelle Davis with Guide Dogs for the Blind. “So they’re 99 percent good, but you have to have 100 percent dog. We donate a lot of our dogs for the deaf, diabetics … The coo-coo ones who just want the ball and are really driven are good for search and rescue and for law enforcement.”
Radcliff, another Spring Bay adoptee, was a “dermatalogical nightmare,” adopted out because he was horrendously allergic to everything under the sun, including human dander. Jennings retired from working in Japan; Ulma was from England.
And then came Stretch, a three-year-old, 80 pound golden/Labrador cross who is Sandy and Carl’s latest addition.
“He worked for a minute and 45 seconds as a guide dog and then they said ‘OMG, this dog has ADD; let’s get this dog out of here before he kills someone,’” says Carl. “We thought maybe his real name was Heel Dammit.”
Full of boundless energy, Stretch also has the uncanny ability to disembowel a tennis ball in two seconds flat.
“Really, to adopt a dog makes so much more sense than to buy one – there are just so many dogs that need homes,” says Sandy. “They’re super-duper special dogs.”
