The Golden K, the history, and how Kali brought us to this place.

Long time followers of Golden Kali may remember that Kali was a rescue from Taiwan. I remember vividly sitting with her in the back yard of our home in Livermore the morning after we picked her up from the airport in San Francisco. Kali assimilated so quickly into her new environment. It had been less than 24 hours and here she was sitting calmly and seemingly very content at my feet as I started this blog. That was almost seven years ago.

The name for the blog was an easy pick. It would be about Kali’s new life in America. She is a Golden Retriever. So as I set up the WordPress site my fingers quickly, and without hesitation, typed Golden Kali into the title field for the site.

At the time I had no idea Kali would be such a big influence on our lives and our future.

A few weeks later Holly, Kali, and I were sitting in the same spot of our yard enjoying a nice Summer evening. Holly told me she wanted to start camping again. She said wouldn’t it be great, now as mostly empty nesters, to get away just the three of us – Holly, Kali, and I – and take some road trips. I agreed and said that was not going to do tent camping again; my back was too old for that. So we decided to start looking for small trailers we could pull behind our SUV.

Fast forward a couple of months and we take a visit to our friends vacation home at Pine Mountain Lake in Groveland, CA. It was a nice weekend, Kali’s first road trip, and she did just fine. Holly and I were like first time parents and we packed everything under the sun that we thought Kali would need. Her crate, food, treats, toys, blankets, leashes, and I’m sure items I am now forgetting. Of course Kali needed none of it including the crate. All she needed was to be with us.

A few weeks later, again sitting in the yard, Holly says to me, “I don’t want a camper anymore”. I asked her why. She said she wanted a vacation home! OK….. I can switch gears pretty quickly. Now instead of researching camper options I start looking at properties in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. A home comes up that I instantly fall in love with. I showed Holly and said, “Look, I found our our home. Not a vacation home but a full time home”. Holly laughed and said she wasn’t moving but she wouldn’t mind taking a road trip to see the home. Cutting to the chase, and after looking at more homes in Tuolumne County over the next couple of months, we closed escrow on that very home I saw online that evening in the back yard. One of the many selling points of the home was it was five acres and had plenty of room for Kali to roam and also be safe with various fences and gates that allowed us to give her a lot of room or just a little depending on circumstances. This was the end of 2015 and we prepared to move.

My romantic vision of living in the mountains included having a name for our home and surrounding property. This was important to me.

Like with this blog it didn’t take long for me to realize that the name of our new home would be The Golden K in honor of my beautiful Kali.

And the “K’s” just kept on coming…. A few weeks before we moved we adopted a new 9 week old Golden Retriever puppy and named her Kloe. It had to be a K name, right? And then a couple of years later we adopted another Golden Retriever, this time a 4 month old. We named her Koda. It is safe to say that the Golden K is full of beautiful Golden K’s! And Kali started it all!

Five years in Taiwan, two years in Livermore, and five years (and counting) in Tuolumne, my Golden Kali has been on a great journey and I’ve been lucky enough to have spent the last seven years with her. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that if not for Kali, there would not be a Golden K, a Kloe, or a Koda. How can one dog have so much influence over the lives of her humans? How can one dog can bring so much joy and happiness into the lives of two people who were otherwise already very happy with their lives?

I guess when that one dog is my Golden Kali it’s as natural as taking that 12 hour flight from Taiwan and straight into my heart.