Golden Retrievers Gather to Honor Spencer, Boston Marathon’s Top Dog

BOSTON — Less than 24 hours before 30,000 runners would board buses to the starting line of the Boston Marathon, a different type of excited energy pulsed through Boston Common.

Will, Sammy, Mandy, Cather, Lucy, Frank, Flynn and Lou were there. So were Kona, River, Miko, Clementine, Lily, Maple, Cedar and Chester.

They were not wearing high-tech sneakers or racing bibs. They had four legs each, were panting wildly and drooling just a bit.

They were some of the 250 or so dogs that descended on a public park in downtown Boston to honor two golden retrievers that became inextricably linked to the Boston Marathon. Spencer, a therapy dog who became the Boston Marathon’s official race dog, died Feb. 17 at age 13 from an inoperable cancer.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/16/sports/boston-marathon-dog-spencer-retrievers.html