Go Buddy!

The World Knows Buddy, aka Air Bud, as the golden retriever "iconic character" popularized in thirteen motion pictures. But I knew him as Buddy, a pinecone-toting, disheveled mess of a stray dog I found in the Sierra Nevada. Buddy's story is much more than the story of a stray who ended up in a movie. It is also the story of a boy—that's me—and his dog. I rescued him from abandonment in the mountains, but Buddy also rescued me, giving my life purpose, direction, and a profound sense of relationship I had been missing. Our bond saved us both and together we forged a path from that dirt trail near the old mine shaft to international sensation on the silver screen, his eventual fall to cancer but not before siring a litter of puppies that would carry on his iconic legacy for generations to come.