Lady 20-058
Profile
At a Glance #20-058
| Golden Retriever | Born: July 2012 |
| Female | 60 lbs |
Status: Adopted
Profile
Updates
Monday, November 16, 2020
Happy Thanksgiving to Lady and her new family! Lady now has two humans, a dog, and a cat as her new family. She will have a big house and a new yard to explore. I was happy to see her tail wagging as she walked to the car with her new humans. It is a very happy ending for our sweet Lady!
Thursday, November 5, 2020
Last week Lady met a cat. The cat was sitting in his owner's lap. When Lady approached, the cat hissed at her. Lady backed away from the cat. Later, the cat was stretched out on a staircase. Lady climbed the staircase and when she saw the cat, she turned around and descended the stairs.
When the cat was walking around the house Lady followed him at a respectful distance. Note that this was an older cat who did not run around quickly. I am not sure how Lady would react to a running cat.
Sunday, October 18, 2020
Lady gave me a scare a few weeks ago. She vomited four times in a short period of time. I was worried that she had eaten something that blocked her intestine. Luckily, she was fine the next day so it turned out just well.
I have attached two photos of Lady. One shows both Lady and one of my resident dogs (Herky). I was staining some fence posts out on my porch and these two typical goldens had to be near me to ‘snoopervise.’ They decided that sleeping underneath the posts was the best place to be. The stain matched their fur color, so it all worked out.
Lady continues to be affectionate, quiet, sweet, and occasionally playful. She is a wonderful companion and would make a great addition to the right family.
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
This morning Lady went outside in the dark by herself. This was a big step for her as she used to need another dog to keep her company. She is getting braver all the time. I am so happy for her.
She is still unnerved by the heating vent when I have been gone for a prolonged period of time. It seems that she has separation anxiety, which she focuses on the heating vent. We still have more work to do on this.
Lady is showing her ability to overcome her past problems as she feels the security and consistency of a stable home. She is a lovely girl with a sweet heart.
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Lady made a step forward today. I have mentioned that she is afraid of the dark. This morning when two of my dogs went outside in the dark, she followed them. I was pleasantly surprised to see her do this. Small steps make big progress.
I have also been slowly revealing the heating vent. It is nearly all visible and so far, so good.
She had a couple of accidents last week. They were in a spot that has been a favorite for previous foster dogs, so I think there is a scent that may have tempted her. I have blocked that area from her and no further accidents have happened.
Lady has been with me for almost four weeks and I can tell that she is feeling more secure. It is showing in her behavior. This girl has had so many changes in the last year. I would love to find a forever home for her so that she doesn't get disrupted anymore! She is a lovely lady and would be a great addition to a loving home.
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Lady has been doing better. She only needs the ThunderShirt® now for actual storms. I have put a piece of poster board in front of the air vent that was upsetting her. Out of sight, out of mind! If she does not see it, she is OK with that.
We had a rainstorm the other day. I put the shirt on Lady. There was no thunder or lightning, but she was still afraid. As you can see in the picture, she crawled into my lap and stuck her head under my arm. She was not shaking, and so we just stayed that way for a while.
She is making progress and settling in with our routines. She will make someone a very sweet family member.
Monday, August 10, 2020
Lady is cone free and happy about that. The first day it was gone she spent some time wandering around the house looking up at the ceiling as if to say, "Things look really different without the cone!"
Lady is showing some anxious behaviors. For a couple of nights in a row she woke me up pawing at one of the air vents in my bedroom. The AC was not on, so she was not reacting a breeze. She tried to push a blanket toward the vent and rubbed her nose on the carpet as if she was pushing invisible dirt to cover it. You can see on the photo that she has rubbed a raw spot on her nose.
Last night I put the ThunderShirt® on her when we went to bed and there was no problem with the vent. I will continue to watch her behavior and see if I can help her with her anxiety. She has been through many changes in the last few months, so it is not surprising that she is anxious.
My job is to help Lady to feel secure and find a forever home where she will be safe and happy!
Friday, July 31, 2020
Since her last update, Lady has had a few changes in her life. First, she had surgery for a mammary tumor that turned out to be benign. She has a good prognosis from this surgery. She will get her cone off next Thursday, and I know that she will be grateful for that.
Her second change is that she moved to my house in Robbinsdale. She joined my three-dog pack and is doing well with that. It is not easy being the new kid and wearing a big stupid cone on your head. Two of my dogs are from breeding operations and they are very suspicious of the cone. I expect that they will also be happy to see it go away next week.
Given the changes that she's had to handle, I think Lady has been a champ. She is not timid and is eager for attention. We take two walks every day and I think that is a change for her. She walks nicely and greets new dogs and people in a friendly way. She has been here for a week and I have not heard her bark as yet.
She impressed me by picking up toys and tossing them in the air the first day that she arrived. Many dogs are depressed when wearing a cone, but not Lady. She did figure out how to make the Velcro on the cone open, so some duct tape had to be added.
She has storm anxiety and has worn a ThunderShirt® when there have been storms. She is happy to wear the shirt and it seems to help calm her. Storms make her anxious, but not destructive or panicked. She needs a safe quiet place to hide out during a storm.
Lady is a very sweet, friendly girl. You can see by the attached photos that even when she is wearing a cone she can relax and bliss out when getting attention. Once the cone is off, I expect Lady will show an even more frisky personality.
Stay tuned!
Monday, June 1, 2020
This past week has been a week full of firsts for Lady! Lady has begun climbing up into my bed for snuggles of her own volition. She even slept in my bed the whole night through a couple of nights ago, which is wonderful because she is a great snuggler when she decides she wants to be snuggled.
She has begun following me around the house most of the day unless she is really tired, and she greets me at the door when I return home. In the past couple of months she has learned to sit, stay, wait, walk on a leash, and she comes to us when called.
Lady has had a couple of overnight visits with my RAGOM foster dog mentor and her four female Golden Retrievers and both visits have gone very well. During the first visit, Lady slept in the bathtub (she likes to feel safe and protected) but during the second visit she slept alongside my mentor's bed.
She got along well with all of the other dogs and even ran and played with TOYS with them! I hoped she would learn to play with toys and balls but she doesn't have any interest in either now that she is back home with me and my son.
She seems to be competitive (in a healthy way) when she is around other dogs—she wants to be the first to reach the ball when it is thrown and she runs very quickly! She is very spry for a dog who will soon be 8 years old.
Lady was groomed at Stone Mountain this past week and her groomers reported that she was sweet and compliant and caused no problems at all during her grooming session. She has definitely come out of her shell and continues to warm up to me and my son (and even my boyfriend) each day.
She will still occasionally stop dead in her tracks when we are walking on the path in the park near our house if someone is walking toward us but not like she used to when she first arrived to us two months ago. She walks with much more confidence in her step now and she sits still when it is time to put her leash on rather than dropping to the floor when you approach her.
It may take her a while to warm up in her forever home but she is becoming much more confident, attached, and seems to even be enjoying being an indoor dog after living her first seven years in a barn. She still doesn't like the vents when the heat or A/C is on, but we tell her to stop pushing her nose around the vents and she usually stops after the first or second command.
She is becoming a great family pet and we are going to miss her when she moves on to her lucky family in her forever home.
Monday, April 27, 2020
Lady is a sweet and timid, 7½-year-old, 60-pound, female, purebred Golden Retriever. She is a petite, little Golden lady who was surrendered at the end of March 2020 because her owner suddenly had to care for her grandchildren more often due to COVID-19-related school closures.
This meant long trips in the car for Lady, frequent transitions between environments, and tolerating the unpredictable energy of young grandchildren.
Lady's surrendering owner says that Lady lived in a barn on a breeder's farm until she was re-homed to her household last October. Lady has since been spayed, microchipped, and is up to date on her vaccines and preventatives. She does not have any physical health issues of which I am aware.
Lady's biggest quirk is that she has a bit of an OCD-like behavior regarding the air vents in the floors of our house. Her surrendering owner noted this quirk in her paperwork as well as our own first-hand observation of this unusual behavior.
Lady will brush the carpet around the vents with her nose as if she is trying to cover the vents with what she thinks should be dirt and, as a result, will sometimes end up rubbing her nose raw. She will also try to push scatter rugs over the vents to stop the airflow and/or noise. We tell her "NO, Lady!" and redirect her when possible.
The behavior has been diminishing over the past month but it is not yet entirely gone. It has helped to place small ottomans, baskets, or tables to block her from accessing the vents where possible. This way she can't get on too much of a roll pacing back and forth while dragging her snoot along the surrounding carpet to the point that the tip of her nose bleeds.
Lady seems to prefer to sleep in spaces that do not have an air vent in them, like our stair landing to the basement and in the dressing area of my master suite. She seems most bothered by the noise of the vents when the household noise dies down at night: the TV is shut off, the phones have stopped ringing, conversation has died down, and there is overall silence in the house other than the ventilation system and my low bedside radio.
She chooses to take her daytime, post-walk naps in places where there is only one point of entry like the corner of a shower stall or a small nook in our mud room.
When we take Lady on walks in the park, she is very leery of people to the point that she will stop dead in her tracks until they have passed us. On the other hand, she has never had a single issue with any dog we have encountered so far.
I believe she would benefit from shadowing a resident dog who is skilled at being a pet and living with humans. She seems to prefer dogs to humans and I believe she would do best in a home with another confident, resident dog and no young children.
Lady has proven to be a flight risk as she has rushed out our front door twice in the last month. We have been able to catch her pretty quickly because she has short little legs, and my son luckily has very long 16-year-old boy legs, but we now know that we have to put her in a contained space or room before we start unloading groceries or moving furniture in and out of the front door.
She will definitely do best in a home with a physically fenced yard for this reason and also because she will very rarely go potty on a leash (like maybe once a month, no joke).
Lady is also very particular about what time of day she will take care of business. She seems to be afraid of the dark (she has earned the nickname "Ol' Lady") so she will NOT go out after the sun sets or if it is too early in the morning. Her surrendering owner also noted this timid behavior in her paperwork.
We have to make sure she goes out before it gets too dark or she may end up holding it until it is sufficiently light out in the morning. This means additional planning ahead with her routine is required to make sure she stays comfortable and does not have an accident in the house.
She has had two accidents in the last month but that is partially because it can be difficult for us to tell when she needs to go out. She is an extremely quiet dog and does not bark when she wants to be let out or when she wants to come back in afterward. You really have to watch her to see if she begins eyeing or walking toward exterior doors and to make sure you stick to a pretty strict feeding schedule.
She seems to be VERY thirsty in general so I check and refill her multiple water bowls around the house often. I also have been trying to make sure to check with her frequently if she wants to go out because she tends to drink a lot of water throughout the day.
Lady is an unusually quiet dog and I have only heard one single bark from her in the entire month we have been fostering her. The one time she barked it was because she was scared to follow me through a sliding grate on a residential elevator because of the loud noise it made. In fact, she makes the most noise when she is sleeping and dreaming!
She is a heavy breather when she is relaxed, and she whines, barks and growls softly in her sleep but I have not heard any of that while she has been awake. The most she will do when she is excited is sneeze and snort. Although she doesn't make any loud noises, she is easily startled by them and will often cower or drop to the ground when she is scared.
If she has been startled like this, I have found that it is best not try and force her into doing what you might need her to do in the moment (e.g. get into the car, follow you into the shower for a bath, etc.). Rather, it is much better to coax her with a series of small treats so she thinks it was all her own idea. She seems to be able to get over many of her fears and reservations if there is a treat involved.
She has definitely begun to come out of her shell with us in the last two weeks especially, but it has taken time and effort to build her trust and gain her affection. In general, she has been much slower to warm up to me, my son, and my boyfriend compared to most Golden Retrievers we have known.
I think we are growing on her as she slowly settles into our routine but it's clear to me that she will require a patient and encouraging owner who can work with her to continue to build her trust in humans.
I do feel encouraged about her adapting to our household more and more each day as she begins to follow me around the house, wait outside of my shower while I sing songs with the word Lady in them to her, and wag her tail excitedly when we first wake up in the mornings like she is really, truly happy to see me.
She will make a great pet for somebody when we find her the right forever home and owner that matches her particular needs. It will be of utmost importance that her adopter be able to continue to provide her extra support as she adapts to life with humans.
She would also likely benefit greatly from additional support from a fellow canine as she transitions to her third new human household within a year. I will miss her when she eventually leaves our home, but I will be so excited for this sweet little mama to be able to settle into her forever home where she can enjoy her "retirement" with some awesome humans who will spoil her in her Golden years!