What a fun, happy dog! Jack is a purebred male 2-year-old Golden Retriever. He had multiple owners before he came into RAGOM’s care, but it is clear that he was loved, trained and cared for well by someone. Jack had to spend a few days in boarding before a foster home opened up for him, and he was SO HAPPY to be back in a home with people and a doggie friend to play with!

In our home, we’ve learned that he knows sit, down, stay, come, give (giving back a tennis ball) and more commands, and almost always does what is asked. Someone took the time to train this young dog to sit to receive pets, and sit when it’s time to get the leash on for a walk…Jack has excellent manners! He pulls on a flat collar (like most young energetic dogs) but walks nicely on a Gentle Leader…when he’s not scratching his nose trying to get it off! He is fully housetrained. When he’s outside he’s very focused on marking every tree, bush, or spot that smells interesting. That marking behavior will decrease a lot when he is neutered. He had a good checkup at the vet and will be neutered in the coming week.

Our resident Golden female has been a bit snarky with him, as she is with most new canine guests, and he is behaving perfectly appropriately—backing down when she tells him off yet coming back for more play attempts. They play more and more each day, and the couch potato resident manages to make Jack do ALL the work of playing—she just sits in the middle, occasionally raising a paw, and he runs, jumps, bolts all around her!

Jack needs an active owner who can give him plenty of exercise to control his youthful energy. He also needs a forever family that will continue to work with him on obedience and training. He might do best in a home with older children or adults. He gets so excited to be playing with his humans, that he doesn’t quite know when to quit—what starts out as a pleasant head-scratching or ball-tossing experience can all too quickly turn into 60+ pounds of pure muscle pushing his way into your face or lap, and that could be overpowering for a young child no matter how loving Jack’s intentions! Jack has done fabulously when meeting neighbor children, who can’t resist his happy face and wagging tail, so while he hasn’t had a lot of experience with children, an adoptive family willing to invest the time training to help Jack and children get used to one another shouldn’t shy away from his exuberance.

His other “issue” if you can call it that is an overwhelming love for textiles. We rather quickly decided that Jack was not safe to be left with the sofa pillows—not that he got our pillows, but we saw what he did to a dog bed! Jack thought it was a big stuffed toy to be unstuffed for his enjoyment. And the towel by the back door for wiping doggie feet? A chew toy of the highest order in Jack’s universe. So we’re being careful to keep pillows/towels/rugs and the like away from Jack lest he consume them to his detriment. He’s very good about appropriate chewing when provided with sturdy chew toys like a Kong. And he loves, loves, loves a tennis ball!

Jack could be an only dog or fit nicely into a home with an active dog who needs a playmate. He’s enjoying playtime with our resident, but is happiest by far when he has the attention of the humans here. So perhaps an ideal home for Jack would be one where he could be the center of the humans’ attention, yet get some doggie playtime at a dog park or family outing.

We’ll be taking some time to get to know him better while we get his neutering taken care of, so we’ll have a better understanding of the right kind of forever home for this sweet young guy. He won my heart as soon as he dropped the tennis ball on my computer keyboard and looked at me with his pleading brown eyes! Let Placement know ( placementragom [dot] org ) if you think Jack might be a good addition to your family!