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This revamped version of TartanGolfGrips.com commenced in earnest during August 2006. During the redevelopment, we lost one of the lights of our lives, when our beloved Rusti passed away on September 9, 2006. Rusti was a rescued Husky/Collie mix who taught us about true love, and got her name from that little patch of red on her nose.
Several words describe our time together and Rusti in general: Effortless, simple, fun, (and funny), ladylike and beautiful all come to mind. Every day she showed her gratitude for being rescued from the Agoura Hills Shelter, and every day was a Blessing - it NEVER could have been long enough together...you ARE and WILL be missed by all of us.... To give you an idea of what Rusti was like, it's easier to describe her by what she DIDN'T do: She was just a complete little lady in everything she did... She DID have a perpetual smile on her face (part of the beauty of the Husky in her), she DID have a beautiful coat, with a gorgeous blaze of pure white fur on her neck behind her right ear (and a smaller blaze of white on top of her head and down her muzzle), and she DID have a big, furry, feather-duster of a tail that was CONSTANTLY wagging when she'd greet me at the door when I'd come home from work, all the way up until the end. Our tradition I: EVERY day that we went for our walk (which was most days), I would call for Rusti, and she would stop whatever she was doing, walk to where I was kneeling, and raise up her right front paw so that I could put her harness on for her. EVERY day, without fail - how she LOVED her walks!!! How I miss seeing that happy, floppy tail while out on our walks today.... Our tradition II: Almost every day, as I was getting ready for work, Rusti would look up from her "bankie" and sniff at my pant legs as I was putting them on. The whole story (for those of you that are interested in such matters): We first met on a sunny Saturday afternoon in June 1995 at the Agoura Hills Animal Shelter...it was June 3, 1995 to be precise. My wife and I had been out running errands, and just on a whim (so we thought at the time, but now realize that Divine Intervention was at work) decided to stop by the Shelter to see what kinds of dogs were there. I was hoping to find a mellow Husky mix...what are the odds of that??? Lo and behold, "Baby" had been dropped off by her previous owner that very morning. Her previous owner had no local address, and had told the Shelter personnel that he was dropping her off and moving to Alaska that day. That was at 10AM, and here we were at 3PM, looking for a husky mix... I took one look at those big sensitive eyes, and I was in love - I just KNEW that she was a sweet dog... As we got to the play area, however, I found out that "Baby" had been abused by her previous owner, and was quite frightened of men. She would NOT allow her tummy to be rubbed, and was very hand-shy. Any rapid hand movements resulted in her ducking and cowering. She WAS quite fond of my wife (as am I, by the way) and was more comfortable around women in general. Undeterred by her shyness, I sensed her innate sweetness of spirit, and wanted to take her home. My wife protested a bit, as she already had two beautiful Cocker Spaniels and was hesitant to add another dog to our family. I persuaded her to give "Baby" the benefit of the doubt, and a good home, and we took her home late that afternoon. We introduced Rusti to Kysha and Kealy first, by keeping "The Girlz" inside the house to let them know that they were "home", and putting Rusti out on the patio, and allowing them to sniff one another through the sliding screen door. Kysha and Kealy did a little barking to let Rusti know who "the bosses" were, and Rusti just sat out there and wagged her tail. She was attentive to all the fuss going on inside the house, but did not respond in kind, and just let the other two wind themselves down. Once they were done, we opened the screen, and eventually Rusti was admitted to the clan... We spent our first weekend together getting accustomed to one another, and things were going really smoothly.We didn't take the time to go to PetSmart to buy her a new collar, but we did tie a red bandanna around her neck. Our first (and only major) incident happened on Monday morning, June 5, 2006, when I was leaving for work. Rusti had given indications that she was bonding with me quite quickly, and on Monday I was heading off to work. I had walked out to the sidewalk to pick up the newspapers, and my wife brought Rusti to the garage door and said "Do you want to go see Daddy?" I crouched down to greet her, fully expecting her to run out to me in the driveway, arms extended to embrace her. Rusti ran towards me, her tail "feathers" swaying back and forth, eyes locked on mine...at the last instant, her gaze diverted beyond me, and she kicked in the afterburners, and headed down the street towards the park at the end of our block. Off I went, running after her just as fast as I could in my loafers...which wasn't very fast at all... We did about two and a half circles around the park at top speed, and then she headed towards the housing tract on the east side of the park with me in hot pursuit... We ran up the sidewalk towards the housing tract, and for whatever reason, Rusti decided to make an abrupt left turn, into the street, RIGHT in front of a car (that was driving WAY too fast, by the way)... The driver SLAMMED on the brakes and Rusti ducked at the sound... I'm CONVINCED to this day that had she not recoiled at the sound, she would have been run over... She turned tail, and headed back into the housing tract, and made an abrupt left turn at the first street and headed up the cul-de-sac... I followed her up the hill, still running at a good clip, breathing hard and sweating profusely and watched her duck under the chain link fence that delineated an open lot in between the houses at the end of the cul-de-sac. Thinking I was going to outsmart this suddenly obstinate dog, I grabbed a trashcan that had been left out on the curb since Friday's trash pickup, thinking I was going to seal her into the pie-shaped open space until I could return home and get a leash and a change of clothes (and SHOES!). Returning to the open space with my car in about 20 minutes, I hopped the chain link fence and started calling for her - no sign of her... It was only upon climbing to the top of the lot and I realized that the chain link fence that outlined the lot did not seal off the concrete drainage channels that had been built into the hillside to channel away the rain and debris flows - she had ESCAPED!!! She'd gone cross country, and I had no idea which direction she had headed... Crestfallen, I went back to the house, called work to tell them that I was going to be in late, and began creating LOST DOG flyers to hang up on the neighborhood telephone poles and light standards. We hung them on every telephone pole and street light standard in a two-mile radius. We filled out missing animal reports at the Agoura, Chatsworth and Camarillo Animal Shelters. We drove around the neighborhood every night for over a week....nothing... FINALLY, after two weeks, we got a phone call from someone who had seen our missing girl, hanging around with "Thor" the neighborhood male-dog Lothario - all the way across the Ventura Freeway in old Agoura. Somehow, she had navigated her way from the open space at the end of Carmento Drive, over 5 miles to Laura La Plante Drive in Old Agoura, and was seen hanging out in the yard with "Thor". We drove over there, and spotted her with Thor. She wasn't really interested in us (puppy love???), but my wife was able to finally approach the two of them with some really pungent puppy treats, and we managed to lasso her with a nylon lead. She smelled terrible and was filthy, but she still had her red bandanna on. That red bandanna was the identifying mark that matched the description that we had filed in the "missing dogs" file at the Agoura Animal Shelter, and a nice family living on Laura La Plante Drive had noticed when they came in to report a stray dog. After two weeks on the road, we were reunited! Somehow, she had navigated the hills and open space between Oak Park and Old Agoura, managed to find Thor (or maybe Thor found her...), and managed to cross the Ventura Freeway at the Cheseboro Overpass to get to the south side of the freeway. (MAP) We bought her a collar on the way home from Old Agoura, gave her a bath, and scheduled an appointment to have her spayed. I gingerly scooped her up in my arms, and carried her down the hiking trail back to the house... It was at LEAST five years before she saw the light of day without her harness on... The next ten years were amazingly simple... Rusti never got sick, never had an accident in the house, rarely barked (except when the water-softener guy came to change the canister next door, or the gardeners showed up over there), slept throughout the night every night on her big circular green, tan and black tan dog bed that was right next to our bed. Rusti would sleep at my feet when I was studying for my MBA at Pepperdine from 1995 to 1998, often resting her chin on my foot. On cold winter nights while we were watching TV, she'd also nuzzle up against my legs. She wouldn't jump up on the sofa unless you'd tap on it to invite her up (which we frequently did), but once she was up there, she was a SPACE HOG!!! That dog knew how to relax, and she was a sprawler!!! I loved it, though, because she WAS a cuddler... She and I also had a couple of little rituals that I really loved... just about every morning, we'd go for a walk. Whenever I'd go to the kitchen cabinet where we stored the leashes and harnesses, Rusti would immediately make a beeline for the food bowl, and begin to eat. As soon as I'd call her name, however, she'd stop eating, walk over to me, lower her head to allow me to slip the harness over her head, and then she'd do the CUTEST thing - once the harness was situated over her head, she'd lift her front left leg to allow me to finish putting on her harness and click her into her harness. EVERY day, without fail - it was AWESOME...she was SO cute.... We'd walk around the tract during the week, and on weekends we'd go for a long walk up around Valley View Park. From about 2001 on, we'd let Rusti and the other dogs off their leashes to run around in the outfield at the softball diamond at Valley View Park. (By that time, she'd settled down enough to not want to bolt every time the opportunity presented itself, and she'd lope around in the outfield, usually by herself.) We took the dogs to the Thousand Oaks dog park a couple of times, and even though Rusti was medium sized, and big enough to be in the "big dogs" section, she was most comfortable in the little dog section. Rust and I went over to the "big dogs" side once, and they were just too rough for my little lady - she was really intimidated and actually hid behind me, so I took her over to the smaller dog side, and she immediately acted much happier, loping around the park at a medium pace. She wasn't a real social dog, preferring to be with us more than other dogs, but she'd occasionally leave our side and run around a bit, but she'd always come looking for us after about 5-10 minutes. Our other little ritual was that Rust would sniff my pant leg as I'd get dressed in the morning. She'd always follow me into the bedroom after showering, and lay down on her bed. When I would start to put my slacks on, she'd always stretch to sniff the hem of my pant leg - I always wondered what she was sniffing for, but almost EVERY day, without fail, she'd do that... I miss that little ritual, Rusti....every day... Things started to change a bit for Rusti about August 2005. I was required to travel to Texas for business once or twice a month, and it wsa during one of my trips that my wife noticed that Rusti had developed a slight tremor in her rear left leg after returning from a walk. We monitored the situation for a couple months, during which time we began treating her with acupuncture and herbal supplements, which helped a bit, but Dr. Karen at East West Vet in Thousand Oaks suggested that we supplement the acupuncture with a series of chiropractic adjustments. The tremor had progressed to the point that Rusti was experiencing periodic lameness in the left rear leg, especially after an extended period lying on that side. In January 2006, our chiropractor, Dr. Philip Pinto in Northridge, gave Rusti three adjustments, and after the first treatment, Rusti's lameness went away! By the third week, she was back to RUNNING in the outfield on our weekend walks! Dr. Pinto and Dr. Martin basically gave us our dog back! I took Rusti in for a maintenance adjustment once a month, and throughout the summer of 2006, she was acting like a puppy again. Her energy level was up, and her pain was gone... We had a great summer in 2006, but because I knew that she was getting up there age-wise and also that she was starting to experience some minor auto-immune issues that Dr. Karen identified, I went home to make lunch and eat with her and our Cocker Spaniel almost every day. Rusti LOVED yogurt, and would finish licking the inside of the yogurt cup - she also LOVED peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but I'd only give them a tiny little taster piece... She started to slow down a little bit a couple of days before Labor Day, and the morning of my birthday, I could tell that she really didn't want to be out on the walk...little did I know that would be our LAST walk together, but in hindsight, it was the best birthday present of all... I went out for dinner the night of my birthday, and returned home to work on this website until about 3AM the next morning. Rusti and our Cocker spent the night sleeping outside the office on the landing, and when I awakened them to go downstairs, Rusti awakend with a start, but had a lot of difficulty standing up on her own. Realizing that something wasn't quite right, and that she was near the stairwell, I scooped her up in my arms and carried her downstairs, so that the dogs could "go outside". When I set her down, Rusti took two steps forward and just collapsed! Horrified, I immediately bent down to lift her up and stabilize her, and after a few seconds of being held, she wagged her tail and trotted out to do her business in the backyard. However, when she came back INTO the house, she stumbled over the doorjamb, and fell again, although not as hard as the first time.... I gently lifted her up, and carried her through to the bed to get some shuteye.... She never made it back from that point, and spent the day after my birthday lying on her green dog pillow in the living room, and was in the same place I laid her when I left for work that morning...I also noticed that her gums and tongue were much lighter in color than normal...she was drinking water when I offered it to her, but she wasn't interested in eating... Needless to say, we spent every minute together when I got home from work that day, and we cuddled with one another on the couch all that night. I didn't work on the website at all that night, and I took her to bed with me that night, praying that she'd get her strength back. We'd had a vet appointment set up to re-check her bloodwork on Saturday, September 9, 2006 at 11AM. My Mom came with me to provide moral support, because my wife was out of town on a business trip. When Dr. Cole at Oak Park Vet ran her blood sample through a preliminary analysis, the prognosis was not good... My beloved buddy had developed severe anemia and a really high fever...Dr. Cole gently explained that the normal treatment protocol called for a transfusion, but he went on to explain that even if we gave her the transfusion, then we'd still need to find out what had caused the anemia in the first place....we'd reached the end of the road together... I'd promised her that I wouldn't let her suffer if she ever got sick, and that I wouldn't put her through heroic measures to prolong her life, like we'd done with our two Cockers. At about 11:40AM on Saturday, September 9, 2006, my Sweetie crossed the Rainbow Bridge...I was heartbroken and devastated, but I'd been steeling myself for this eventuality ever since she had been so weak, hobbled and miserable with the pinched nerve around Christmas 2005. Mom drove Rust and me over to the L.A. Pet Cemetery, and we had Rusti cremated. Her remains are now in a beautiful brass urn on my dresser, and I've adorned it with a little brass doghouse-shaped photo frame that has a tiny picture of Rusti in it that I've had hanging off my desk lamp for the last eight years or so... We had a great run Rusti - you blessed me in more ways than I can list here, and I hope that we blessed your life the same way that you blessed ours...it NEVER could have been long enough, but I thank GOD that he brought us together that Saturday in June 3, 1995 at the Agoura Shelter, and I thank HIM that we had such a great run together...you were an AWESOME dog, my love... I miss you, Baby....I love you too, my Forever Friend....my Rusti-Girl...this website is dedicated to you and to honor your memory...I changed the official TartanGolfGrips.com tartan to the "Rust" tartan in your honor...
"THE GIRLZ" - A memorial to Kysha Monet Cypress and Kealy Moon Zara Kysha Monet Cypress: Feb. 12, 1989 - Jan. 10, 2003 Rusti also had two buddies to hang with throughout her life, Kysha (KEE-shuh) and Kealy. (That's Kealy on the right) These two little angels were also blessings from God, and taught us SO much about LOVE, LIFE, STRENGTH, COURAGE and FAITHFULNESS. My wife began her run with "The Girlz" in February 1989, and I began my full-time association with them on the day of the Northridge Earthquake, January 17, 1994. Kysha faced a series of health challenges, including a laminectomy when she was only two years old, but she overcame all of them. With style!!! Kysha developed lung cancer around Christmas of 2001, and thanks to the talents of Dr. Ross Lirtzman, then with Vet Med Surgical Center in Ventura, CA, she lived happily throughout the summer of 2002, getting my wife through a rough time in her life. Unfortunately, the cancer returned two days after Christmas 2002...Kysha passed away on January 10, 2003. Following her sister's passing, Kealy was depressed and listless. She rallied a bit in February 2003, but developed severe pancreatitis and IBD, and couldn't keep food down...(she'd always been a more nervous dog than her "sissy" was...) After putting her through some heroic measures to prolong her life and keep her fed, Kealy went to be with Kysha on April 12, 2003. Our lives have been blessed immeasurably by all three of these little angels, and all of them used to LOVE their trips to PetSmart, and the goodies that we'd bring home for them. That's why we are proud to create this tartan pattern in their honor, and donate 15% of the net proceeds to PetSmart Charities. Kysha was buff and is represented by the gold, and Kealy is represented by the black. Their collar colors were pink and purple, respectively, and they have been joined together by a white line representing heaven, and the purity of the love and affection that we all shared together. .
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"The Kids" - It's a dog's life at TartanGolfGrips.com corporate headquarters...introducing the current crew of "fur-persons",..
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