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That's right! When you view the attachments,
you are NOT seeing double...Stanley's REAL brother has joined
our family. Now there are over 200 pounds of canine fur living
at our house...YIKES! If you think you are surprised, our heads
our still spinning! Through an amazing twist of fate, we discovered
that one of Stanley's littermates was in need of a new home.
The story is incredible....It involves two countries, three
states, three families, and two brain tumors (yes, you read
that right). The odds of all of the things that transpired over
the course of a mere 4 day period are astounding. We would have
had better odds of hitting a major Powerball jackpot than discovering
this one dog.
Parker is just as handsome and loving as his brother, Stanley.
Parker and Stanley were both born in Budapest, Hungary on
October 1, 2002 (also, Tim's birthday!). They were both exported
to the U.S. the week before Thanksgiving on separate flights
to their new homes: Stan to ours, and Parker to New Jersey.
Parker went to a married professional couple with no children.
He was left all alone 12 to 14 hours a day, while his owners
were at work in New York each day. The owners decided to place
him up for adoption using a private advertisement. A woman
in Maryland read the ad and hoped to adopt him. This woman
happened to write to an email group she found of bernese owners
around the world, seeking guidance and advice regarding this
adoption. I, as part of this email group, read her posted
messages and the responses she received. Ultimately, she became
unsure as to whether or not the timing was right for her family
to adopt. At that point, she stated some facts about the dog's
history including his place of birth and birthdate, and I
began thinking there was a remote possibility that this dog
may be related to Stanley. This was Thursday, October 30th.
I talked with Tim, and we decided that if this was indeed,
Stan's brother, we needed to help him. I contacted the woman
in Maryland who had been considering adopting him. Strangely,
she herself is a 2 and a half year survivor of malignant brain
cancer.....are you getting goose bumps yet???? (Zoltan, my
57 year old Mom has been surviving with brain cancer, too,
for over a year and a half, which is why that piece of information
startled us.)
Here is an excerpt from a letter the woman in Maryland posted
to the worldwide berner internet group on Sunday:
I received some tremendously encouraging and intelligent
and caring emails about my decision to adopt Parker, the 1
yr old Berner up for adoption via his first family. I gave
it some serious thought and had decided to get him this weekend,
then something flipped me for a loop and I had to completely
revisit my decision....
....I received a wonderful, caring and heart-wrenching email
from a fellow Lister, Jennifer Torigian. She shared personal
details and expressed her desire to help me find out more
about Parker, because she felt that the birthdate of her dog
and Parker was more than a coincidence. And it WAS!!!! .....(We
later confirmed that they are truly bood brothers from the
same litter!) Stanley and Parker are both hale, hearty and
have gorgeous calm temperaments.
After reading Jennifer's email, it dawned on me almost immediately
that this was the right family for Parker. I felt it very
very deep in my gut - and I trust my gut, having learned the
price of ignoring it. I immediately set about writing back
to Jennifer and we marveled out how much our life experiences
were similar, and it became obvious to me that she was a warm,
open and caring woman who had a big enough heart to take Parker
into their home and have him spend the rest of his life with
his own brother. It gave me goosebumps, folks, honest to god.
At the last possible moment, right until I was to finalize
arrangements to pick Parker up in New Jersey, I notified the
owners that I had found, by one in a billion chance, a family
who had Parker's brother, Stanley .The sire and dam and breeder
were all the same, and indeed, Parker was a full brother to
Stanley. The owners were surprised, somewhat taken aback and
yet, they decided to follow my recommendation and trust my
gut instincts and agree to the switch in new adoptive home
- and thanks to Jennifer's wonderful Dad and her husband,
Tim, Parker is on his way home as I write this and probably
spending his first hours with his new family.(Sunday, Nov
2)...
I'm so excited, I feel like I'm going to explode. I know
in my bones this is the right thing to do for Parker, and
that if I had followed my own desire to have him here, he
wouldn't have had quite as PERFECT a home as he will now.
He will have the benefit of a full time at home mom, two adorable
and gentle girls as his best friends and a brother whom he
can romp with, enjoy vacations with and grow old with - and
all within a warm family setting.
I hope everyone on the List can appreciate the incredible
FATE involved in this decision and that all the coincidences,
some of which I feel are private to Jennifer and I (i.e. the
brain tumor thing), add up to a situation where Parker was
meant to go to their family and I was meant to be the facilitator.
When I sat down with my husband and we considered the sheer
likelihood of this being merely a fluke, we couldn't agree
that it was - we considered it a "sign" if you will.
I'm not much for religious faith and don't practice any religion
but if I did, I'd think this was a message to me. I believe
in fate to some extent and this is fate.
I want to thank the generous hearts of the Nelson family
who gave up Parker hoping for a better life for him, and to
the Torigian family for acting so quickly and taking up the
challenge of driving 8 hours to make sure that Parker has
a new family this coming week. Woo Hoo!!!!
Payton
Baltimore County, MD
So, that's the story of how Parker found his way to our home.
Sorry so long, but it's all so complicated, I couldn't decide
how to shorten it more! I know the picture quality stinks
in the attachments. If it ever stops raining, we can get some
nice shots outside of the "Brothers from Budapest."
Parker has been here for just a week now, and it's as though
he has always been with us. Right from the start it was an
incredibly smooth transition. Our vet said they KNOW they
are littermates because of something called "scent-mediated
kin recognition." When they sniffed each other, they
knew they were brothers.
I thought their breeder might enjoy knowing that these two
boys are living happily together. They were born Oct 1, 2002.
Hope you can share our special story with their breeder.
Sincerely,
Tim, Jennifer, Nicole, Amanda, sisters Cassie & Lacey
(the ragdoll cats),
and brothers Stanley and Parker
Massachusetts
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