Melissa Gilbert and her husband Timothy Busfield have all the time had canine. They presently have a rescue canine named Chicago, and who can neglect the Little Home on the Prairie actor’s little bulldog Josephine, the inspiration for her youngsters’s ebook Daisy and Josephine. However the couple used to have a golden retriever named Chevy. Right here’s why they thought it greatest to rehome the canine.
How Melissa Gilbert and Timothy Busfield got here to undertake Chevy
At the moment, Gilbert and Busfield reside within the Catskills. However earlier than that, they lived in Michigan, Busfield’s residence state. It was a welcome adjustment for Gilbert, who’d spent her complete life within the Hollywood quick lane. She was prepared for one thing quieter and slower. That’s precisely what Michigan offered. Whereas residing in Michigan, the couple adopted a golden retriever, Chevy, from their buddies, the Smiths.
“They raised goldens, but they were also expecting their sixth kid, and when they heard we were looking for a dog, they introduced us to four-year-old Chevy, who had us with his first lick,” Gilbert wrote in her 2022 memoir, Again to the Prairie.
They have been residing out within the woods on the time and Busfield needed Gilbert to have a canine “with a big bark” that would shield her when he was out of city.
“My tiny bulldog Josephine, who preferred to nestle in my lap or on the sofa, didn’t cut it,” wrote Gilbert. “But Chevy fit the bill perfectly.”
Chevy hated residing in New York Metropolis
Chevy was blissful at Gilbert and Busfield’s residence in Michigan.
“He was an adventurous free-roamer who spent hours exploring the woods on his own but somehow was always loping back when one or both of us wanted his company,” wrote Gilbert of her former canine.
However, finally, Gilbert and Busfield made the transfer to New York Metropolis for work.
“Chevy was not thrilled,” she wrote. “Unlike Josephine, he was not made for apartment living. Neither was he wired for daily walks on a leash. He missed being outside and free. It was more than hate. I could see the contempt in his eyes. Apartment living in the city? You’ve got to be kidding me. This is not a life.”
Melissa Gilbert injured her shoulder whereas strolling Chevy
Then, one night time when Gilbert was taking Chevy out on a stroll, he pulled on his leash more durable than regular and injured her shoulder.
“He saw a rat run out from one of the vents on the side of a brownstone,” wrote Gilbert. “He took off, and the force of his lunging and then my trying to hold him back injured my shoulder.”
Add it to the checklist of accidents the actor had suffered within the final a number of years. Just some years prior, she dropped out of the race for Congress because of excessive ache from a herniated disc urgent on the nerves in her neck. A number of years previous to that, she broke her again.
Between the harm and Chevy’s clear unhappiness with residing within the metropolis, Gilbert and Busfield determined to search out their canine a brand new residence.
“I waited months before I got it examined,” wrote Gilbert. “Photos revealed a badly torn rotator cuff. Surgical procedure was inevitable. However first issues first. We discovered a brand new residence within the nation for Chevy with our buddies Pete Benington and his spouse, Kathy. They’d a home on a lake, loads of land, and youngsters and grandchildren close by, and they’d just lately put down their beloved twelve-year-old Lab. After a lot soul-searching, we proposed the thought. ‘Oh my God, are you kidding?’ they stated. ‘We already love Chevy!’
And that was that. Gilbert had one more lengthy highway of therapeutic forward and Chevy discovered a brand new residence someplace that he preferred far more than New York Metropolis.