Ladd's Story - 1999

Ladd - with his new brother, Gus

Ladd's story - as told by his new family, Jerry and Bill McAninch . . . . .

After our irish/golden mix, Mac died, I asked my vet for the name of an Irish owner to try to get a line on where to find one. Mac was his only IS patient so they referred me to the Greater Columbia Obedience Club, which in turn gave me Darla Ladkau's name and she referred me to you. You put me in touch with Judy Britt and Bonnie Foster in late Nov. (Mac died Oct 23). Bonnie had Tazz up for adoption, but it seemed so far away and we really wanted a bigger dog than Tazz for our aggressively playful 1 1/2 year old golden retreiver, now a solid 85-90 lbs. Judy had Isaiah who sounded very good. We went to our NC mtn. cabin near Asheville for Thankgiving and were ready to go meet him when they told us he was being adopted by a NY family. But Judy was so helpful. She described Setters-L and offered to post our desire for an Irish there. I never saw it, not being a subscriber then, but when we got home we had bunches of emails about puppies and rescues from New Orleans to New York. We narrowed our search to either a puppy from a North Carolina litter or Max, a rescue male in Atlanta that Pat Hair wrote us about. We emailed and phoned a lot, and in early Dec decided on Max (too close to Mac, so renamed Ladd)
	Ladd was found somewhere in the Atlanta area running wild. He was picked up by the pound, and was about to be put to sleep, but the shelter folks had become very fond of him,so THE DAY he was due to be euthanized, they called Irish Setter Club of Georgia. It's a small group and everyone was at work that day, but a club member drove two hours up I think from Athens to rescue the dog that ISC GA rescue began calling Max. Had she not gone that day, he would be dead now. This must have been just about the time that Mac died. He was extremely emaciated, had matted hair that had to be cut, and had worms, but GAIS rescue took him to the vet and had everything done. They have problems with foster homes there as people arent really weel equipped for fostering for long. Anyway, Pat and I talked and the more she said, the more Max sounded like our Mac. Meanwhile, Gus went from an exuberant puppy spoiled by Mac and by us to a lonely, mopey miserable boy. I t didnt really take us long to decide that Max was for us.
In early Dec we loaded the crate and Gus sat in the back seat (he had to approve of this dog) and we met Pat and George Hair and Pat Widener who had been fostering Max at a rest stop just this side of Atlanta where Max became Ladd. We chose that name because he was about 14-18 months the Pats think and so he's not a pup or a dog but a lad. Also I remember the wonderful dog books I read as a child, especially "Lad: a Dog". In fact, I am relistening to the wonderful unabridged tape of it now. And Ladd is a family name too. If our second child had been a boy his name would have been Ladd. So there it is. Ladd and Gus are wildly happy. At about the same age they play vigorously then happily lick each others faces and tongues for afew minutes. We adore Ladd and he seems very happy too. He has had a terrible problem recently as he apparently got bitten by abrown recluse spider on his inside toe of the left front foot. It's been terribly painful and opoor thing he's had to go to the vet virually every day, incl. Sat and Sun for two weeks. But the vet did a great job, though the first digit and toenail had to be removed. Yesterday he got the stitches removed and was pronounced well. All that 's a long story in itself. But that summarizes our story and Ladd's.
	Thank you so much for your help in putting us on the track to him. Pat told me to subsribe to Setters-L because we had heard about bloat and had really become terrified of it. Pat said there was lots of health info etc. I've really enjoyed it. Sent my first email to it yeasterday about Mac's holiday binges, and several people have written back such nice notes. What a great group you all are. Really, the names of the regualrs seem like old friends to me. I worried aout Chelsea, cheered for three-leged Styles in Kansas and am now very concerned about Lacey. Jerry and also Bill McAninch

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