Stella was adopted today and is now home with her new family and furbutt sister--yay, Stella!!!
Stella 13-003
Profile
January 12, 2013
Please welcome Stella, a 2 year-old, pure-bred Golden Retriever beauty who weighs 56 lbs. She has a graceful appearance with her long feathers and thin facial features. She is spayed and current with all her vaccinations.
Stella’s loving owner worked at the pet store where Stella was for sale. It broke her heart week after week to not see this adorable puppy adopted, and when she was 4 months old she adopted her. She did a beautiful job training her (basic and intermediate obedience), socializing her to people and other animals, and loving her like none other. She recently went back to school full time and had a change in her living situation. She wanted Stella to have the best life possible so made the very difficult decision to surrender her.
Stella acclimated to the daily rhythm of our household really quickly. Stella gets along with the two female resident dogs, and within a day learned the ropes for interacting with cats (she had never been around cats). She is crate trained but has been doing excellent with free roam of the house. She is fully housebroken. She sleeps through the whole night without a peep. She is a total sweetie !
Stella has grown into a beautiful dog. She is happy and easy-going, and usually has a smile on her face. She loves pets and getting attention, but is just as happy to grab a bone to chew on, or she’ll crawl up on one of the couches to take a snooze. Her biggest hurdle is that she lacks confidence—she needs to warm up to and get familiar with anything new. If she is in “this is new” mode, she shifts into hyper-alert and can be skittish and afraid of sudden movements and loud or abrupt noises. She will need a person or family to continue building her self confidence so she can develop into the best dog she can be.
We haven’t seen any sign of resource guarding over toys or food. We have her going out on a leash to do her business, and she is doing great with that. She has excellent recall, so if she gets plenty of exercise she will not require a house with a fenced yard. The previous owner said she loves kids, and I will test her with that in the next few days. She will thrive in a home with another medium or large dog to model confidence, but she will do great in a home as the only dog too.
Here is Stella and her favorite buddy the resident Golden (Stella is on the left).
It has been such a joy watching Stella come out of her shell as she gets more comfortable. We are out in the country, and the other day I was telling a friend that I am trying to bring out Stella’s inner tomboy. She added that she is a girly-girl, so she’s a ‘ponytail tomboy’ :-).
If you think you may be a good match for Stella, please contact your placement advisor. We will update as we learn more about her!
At a Glance #13-003
| Golden Retriever | Born: February 2011 |
| Female | 55 lbs |
Status: Adopted
Profile
January 12, 2013
Please welcome Stella, a 2 year-old, pure-bred Golden Retriever beauty who weighs 56 lbs. She has a graceful appearance with her long feathers and thin facial features. She is spayed and current with all her vaccinations.
Stella’s loving owner worked at the pet store where Stella was for sale. It broke her heart week after week to not see this adorable puppy adopted, and when she was 4 months old she adopted her. She did a beautiful job training her (basic and intermediate obedience), socializing her to people and other animals, and loving her like none other. She recently went back to school full time and had a change in her living situation. She wanted Stella to have the best life possible so made the very difficult decision to surrender her.
Stella acclimated to the daily rhythm of our household really quickly. Stella gets along with the two female resident dogs, and within a day learned the ropes for interacting with cats (she had never been around cats). She is crate trained but has been doing excellent with free roam of the house. She is fully housebroken. She sleeps through the whole night without a peep. She is a total sweetie !
Stella has grown into a beautiful dog. She is happy and easy-going, and usually has a smile on her face. She loves pets and getting attention, but is just as happy to grab a bone to chew on, or she’ll crawl up on one of the couches to take a snooze. Her biggest hurdle is that she lacks confidence—she needs to warm up to and get familiar with anything new. If she is in “this is new” mode, she shifts into hyper-alert and can be skittish and afraid of sudden movements and loud or abrupt noises. She will need a person or family to continue building her self confidence so she can develop into the best dog she can be.
We haven’t seen any sign of resource guarding over toys or food. We have her going out on a leash to do her business, and she is doing great with that. She has excellent recall, so if she gets plenty of exercise she will not require a house with a fenced yard. The previous owner said she loves kids, and I will test her with that in the next few days. She will thrive in a home with another medium or large dog to model confidence, but she will do great in a home as the only dog too.
Here is Stella and her favorite buddy the resident Golden (Stella is on the left).
It has been such a joy watching Stella come out of her shell as she gets more comfortable. We are out in the country, and the other day I was telling a friend that I am trying to bring out Stella’s inner tomboy. She added that she is a girly-girl, so she’s a ‘ponytail tomboy’ :-).
If you think you may be a good match for Stella, please contact your placement advisor. We will update as we learn more about her!
Updates
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Boy oh boy, what a week it’s been! My FM thinks I have grown a couple of inches since I got here, but really it is just that everything is not all so new now, and I am standing straighter and starting to strut my stuff a little. We are out in the sticks and my new favorite thing to do is “look-out duty.” I watch for wild turkeys coming into the yard, and I can see deer off in the woods way before my FM can. I like to earn my keep around here so I bark to let everybody know we have company. My FM is working with me to just look and not bark :-).
Here is a picture of me looking out the living room window, monitoring the situation:
Smelling is another one of my favorite things to do. I love all these smells out here. Just to let you know, though-- I am not one of those crazy dogs who runs off when I am on to a scent. I ALWAYS stay right by my FM. Here is a picture of me smelling where all those turkeys have been.
I feel so much better now—I am not afraid of going for walks anymore. At first when I got here, sometimes my FM had to coax me to go for walks first thing in the morning. It was still dark out for crying out loud, and everything was so scary-- I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to go, didn’t want to go, so I pretended that I weighed 500 lbs and held my ground. Now I know the routine, and I am a good little walker. I lag behind a little bit when we are heading out, but boy can I high-tail it when we are heading back home. (She thinks I am not a morning dog because I love my walk any other time of day).
I am a good eater –we each have a special place in the kitchen where my FM puts our dishes down, and I tuck right into mine and am a happy camper. She wanted me to pass on to everybody that I got into a scuffle with my Golden furbutt sister a couple of times when we had treats. I thought maybe she was trying to take mine away from me so I got snarky. She was getting into my space and I didn’t appreciate that. FM picked up the treats, and now there aren’t as many fun things laying around to chew like there used to be.
I have a cat friend named Tigger who I like to play with. We lay next to each other to take naps. Here we are playing hide and seek:
I am happy here, and I’ll be even happier once I get to my forever home!
FM here: Stella is having a resurgence of puppyhood. As she gets more comfortable, her self-esteem is blossoming and along with that a couple of puppy behaviors are surfacing. She is mouthing quite a bit and I am working to curtail that, and her latest thing is to grab my sleeve or my shirt and play tuggie with it. Nipping that behavior in the bud is a work in progress—she really likes that game! She was in a cage at the pet store during some of her vital development, so I figure she has every right to have a couple of puppy behaviors, as long as we work through them quickly so she can move on to being a big girl. These behaviors are the exception, though--all in all you could not ask for a better dog. Her adoptive family will need to work with her on her on these things, and I think underneath her insecurity she has a strong will— so she will need strong, gentle leadership.
Let your placement advisor know if you are interested in meeting Stella!