In honor of Mother’s Day, I am going to tell you a little story. It’s a Mother’s Day story with a twist, since it’s about a mom who doesn’t usually get celebrated on Mother’s Day, but she is a mom nonetheless! It also helps that this is a true story, a personal story, that happened a few years ago on, you guessed it, Mother’s Day. This is a story about my family’s dogs, Tequila and Cody.

Being a volunteer with Golden Rescue, an organization that works to rescue and find homes for displaced Golden Retrievers, my Mom received a call about a new golden that had just been picked up. She was listed for sale on Kijiji; after contacting the person who posted the ad workers at Golden Rescue convinced this individual to hand the dog over to them. At that point we knew her as Kila, and she was a very sick puppy.

Tequila after surgery

After picking her up, my Mom and I took Kila straight to the vet. She was so sick we had to carry her in as she was unable to walk. After some consultation we were told she had septicemia originating in her uterus and needed emergency surgery and intensive care. It was heartbreaking seeing Kila so sick, even after surgery the vet told us that there was a very slim chance that she would recover. But she pulled through, and soon enough she was able to come home with us to continue her recovery.

My Mom started to do some research on Kila to find out where she came from. The first person she called was the breeder of our dog Cody, also a Golden Retriever. The description of Kila sounded all to familiar to the breeder. “Do you mean, Kila, as in Tequila? She was one of my breeding dogs” she told us. She was devastated to find out that once Tequila was retired, the person who bought her, someone she trusted, treated Tequila so poorly.

Cody

The breeder told us that Tequila was still having puppies around the time that our Cody was born. She told us her official registered name, and lo-and-behold there was her name on Cody’s birth certificate – Tequila was Cody’s mom! That sure explained the similarities in their looks and temperament. We were completely floored by the coincidence! We decided to officially adopt Tequila so that she could be part of our family, and so that Cody could have his mom.

I am happy to report that today Tequila is happy and healthy! I hope that by sharing this story you will remember to be careful when buying pets online. I also hope that you had a wonderful Mother’s Day, and I wish all the mother’s out there, canine, human, whatever, a belated Happy Mother’s Day!

Tequila fully recovered!