Please welcome sweet Dakota into the RAGOM family. She is a just-retired breeder girl who weaned her last litter a few weeks ago. She’s ready to enjoy retirement and wants so badly to learn what this “Golden Life” is all about!

As with so many of the dogs that come to us from commercial breeders, everything is new to Dakota and, being new, many things are quite scary for her at first. Everything from riding in a car, walking on a leash, hearing the vacuum or the dishwasher, to just living inside with people is a new experience and is, we’re sure, quite overwhelming for her.

We know that it will take her quite a while to adjust, but every day we see her taking little steps as she slowly gains confidence. She has two kennels: one in the living room where she can watch how our household works from a safe spot and the other in the bedroom where she can sleep at night with her new pack (two resident dogs, one resident cat, and her two humans) or just get away from things for a quiet nap during the day.

Dakota passed her initial vet check with flying colors. Her lungs and heart are strong, she has no ear infections, and her teeth are in good shape. She is heartworm negative and has no parasites. Because of her recent litter, we will be delaying her spay surgery until the first week in February to give her more time to recover.

She is a small Golden. She weighed in at the vet clinic at 70 pounds, but we are going to be demanding a recount! She is roughly the same size as our resident 55-pound dog Sooner. We think someone accidentally had a thumb on the scale.

Right now, much of her time is spent in one or the other of her kennels, but every day we see her coming out little by little to explore her new world. We think that she is going to be a very affectionate dog. Two days ago, we were lucky enough to film her first-time play experience with her foster brother Sooner. You can see from the smile on her face that she was having a really good time.

Because she comes from a commercial breeding background, we know that she will need another confident, medium- or large-size dog in her household. She would love a fenced yard, we’re sure, but we think she would do fine in a home where her people are committed to giving her frequent opportunities to walk on a leash.

At this point we know that she is easily frightened of quick movements and unexpected noises so her family should not have kids under 13 years old. We have an 18-year old cat and Dakota gets along fine with her.

It will be a while, with her pending spay surgery and just generally becoming comfortable in her new world, before she will be ready to go to her furever home. However, if you think that she might fit into your household we’d love to tell you more about her.

Thank you for reading about Dakota. We’ll keep you up to date on her new “Golden Life.”