This month’s blog is Gracie’s story and related fundraising event information. Read on to learn who Grace was (hint, the taproom’s favorite furry friend) and her amazing adoption story written by her biggest fan (and St. Vrain Cidery co-founder and CEO), Cindy Landi.

June 21st is National Bring Your Dog to Work Day. We will have our own special version in the taproom that we’re naming Bring Your Dog to Happy Hour, a fundraiser. This idea is close to our hearts at St. Vrain Cidery as our beloved taproom greeter and BFF, Grace, passed away earlier this year. We will donate all Happy Hour discounts on Friday June 21st from 12-6PM to the Longmont Humane Society, where we adopted Grace. We’ll even have a goodie bag for the pups attending 🙂

Our story with sweet Grace. We are so incredibly happy that Grace touched our lives. Many of you know her from the taproom. It was unquestionably one of her favorite places. We were reassured of that every time she enterd the taproom with her playful, bouncy, run or when jumped out of the car and ran to the door as fast as she could. Or the effort she took to peel herself off her bed to come say hello to everyone who came through the door.

We adopted Grace from the Longmont Humane Society in August 2013. She was 9 years old at the time we adopted her, and we were told she had been living at the shelter for about 9 months. I remember walking around (after being dragged by two dear friends, Sunny & Bret, who were in town visiting from Texas) and seeing sweet Grace sitting calmly, quietly in her enclosure, looking up with those sad droopy eyes while the other dog in with her was bouncing up and down, up and down, non-stop and barking. I knew I had to save her.

Sunny, Brett and I rushed home to get Dean but had to wait a couple of hours for him to get back before we could take him to meet her. When we returned to the shelter hours later, they said she was gone. My heart sank. Luckily, we found out she had been taken to an off-site adoption event so we rushed over to the event, and the rest is history. The volunteers cried as we walked away with her. Grace made a ton of friends while she was living there.

Two days after we brought Grace home we took her to Coot Lake where we passed two ladies on the trail. One of them turned and said, “Grace?!”, I said “Yes. Do you work at the humane society?” She said, “No, I used to live next door to her.” It made me so very happy to be able to let everyone in her previous life know she was healthy, happy, and had a new family.

For almost 6 years we all got to enjoy Grace’s energy, personality (so much personality), and love. She brightened our days and reminded us what it meant to love unconditionally and to enjoy every moment. We miss you Gracie!

Rockin’ with the band                          Mardi Gras                                         Greeting new visitors to the cidery