Buddy is an 8-month-old purebred Golden who weighs 69 pounds. Buddy came to RAGOM because his family realized that they didn’t have the time to take care of him. Buddy is smart, happy, friendly, loving—all typical Golden traits. He has very quickly picked up commands like sit, lay down, and come (although we still have to work on them when he’s excited or distracted).

Buddy has recently learned to walk with a Gentle Leader and does very well. We started with a harness, then switched to a front hook harness and finally the Gentle Leader. He liked to pull, but got better with each one.

Buddy is fine with the other dogs we encounter when we walk and lived with a family with three older kids before coming to our house. He loves to race around our fenced yard or even our large family room with a rope toy swinging around like a lasso!

Buddy does well when we confine him to the kitchen when we can’t be home. He’s very respectful of baby gates and has not tried to get out. He sometimes wants to see what’s on the counter, so we’ve been working on that.

He will need ongoing obedience training, as he still has the puppy tendency to get into things, is a little mouthy and “sort of” listens to commands. He has a lot of puppy energy so would do well in a house with several people who are able to walk him, play fetch, work on obedience, etc.

We’ve started working with him on fetching and he took to that pretty quickly. He is a sweetheart and will make a great family pet.