As you might have seen, we lost our dog Tess 3 weeks ago. She suddently ruptured a disk in her back, which compressed her spinal cord and resulted in Myelomalacia.
It was a very sad day when we had to tell her goodbye - she was our first dog together and was our baby. We don't have kids, so it was that much harder on us - it felt like we lost a child. Two days ago a co-worker of my husband's told him about a dog he had taken in the night before from a friend. The friend had gotten this dog from a pheasant hunting ranch out West that also breeds/trains/sells Labs for hunting. This dog didn't cut it as a hunter, so he ended up getting her for free instead of the $500-1000 he would have had to pay if she had been a good hunter.
Anyway, as she was enroute from SD to MI, something occurred and the friend had to back out of taking her. So my husband's co-worker said he'd take her temporarily until he could find her a home (he already has 2 two dogs and just couldn't keep her). We went and looked at her Wednesday night and ended up bringing her home. She's 1-1/2 years old, is a registered black English Labrador Retriever, and she is very sweet and mellow. I'm sorry that we missed her puppy stage as they are SO cute when pups, but yet again the puppy stage is a huge amount of work, too. She does need some training in basic commands, but is housebroken already and hasn't shown any interest yet in chewing on shoes or furniture. She seems very smart, so hopefully training will be relatively easy. 
I still miss my Tess horribly
, but Cinder helps to fill that huge void. She makes me look forward to coming home from work every day again.