Ellie 10-099

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Profile

April 2, 2010: 

I would like to introduce everyone to Ellie! She’s a sweet, loveable, 88 lb purebred golden girl. She came to RAGOM because her owner was moving and unfortunately could not bring her along. She was very sad to leave her family, and her older sister Emma, but they wanted her to have a good home and someone to love and care for her. Even though I’ve only known Ellie for a few days, I know that this won’t be a hard task because she’s such a great dog!

Ellie is a gorgeous girl with a thick, soft red coat and fluffy tail, and she will be 2 years old on May 15th. I took her to the vet this week and am happy to report she is healthy and now up-to-date on all her vaccines. She has also been spayed and microchipped and both her fecal and heartworm tests came up negative.

She loves attention, belly rubs, and having her paws held and gets along great with our resident golden, Sydney. (We have also heard from her previous owner that she is great with all kids but haven’t been able to test her yet.) Ellie also hasn’t had any problems with our cat, other than sniffing her out of curiosity, but for the most part they ignore each other. She is also housetrained, doesn’t need a crate, and has been left alone with our dog in the house without any problems.

Ellie likes tennis balls and playing fetch with us and our other dog, and she is sometimes silly and even tries to play fetch with herself! She does not have any aggression or guarding issues with toys or treats so that is good as well. We have taken her for a few car rides and although she can be a little scared, she gets in and out with no problems. For the most part Ellie is very well behaved and knows commands like “sit”, “down” and “come.” She even let me trim her toenails the other day!

There are a few traits that Ellie needs to work on. First, she can be submissive and fearful to strangers, but mostly men. She does not bite or show aggression but mostly backs away and will bark. However, after she is introduced properly with petting and treats she will warm right up to them (as she did with my husband- now they are best friends!) Secondly, along with the fear Ellie can have some submissive urination. We have had no problems with her urinating inappropriately in the house except for twice when she was afraid, and both times were only a tiny spot (and a similar situation occurred at the vet). Finally, Ellie is a ball of energy when you come home after being gone and likes to jump on you to show how happy she is to see you! We have been working with her to make her stay down and usually she calms down after a minute or so – she’s learning!

I think it would be best if Ellie’s forever home included another dog to help her adjust and trust her human parents. She was very shy and timid when she first arrived in our foster care until she met our golden and instantly became a bubbling, energetic girl. Ellie is an absolute beauty and any family would be lucky to have her! Stay tuned for more updates.

At a Glance #10-099

Golden Retriever Born: May 2008
Female 88 lbs

Status: Adopted

Profile

April 2, 2010: 

I would like to introduce everyone to Ellie! She’s a sweet, loveable, 88 lb purebred golden girl. She came to RAGOM because her owner was moving and unfortunately could not bring her along. She was very sad to leave her family, and her older sister Emma, but they wanted her to have a good home and someone to love and care for her. Even though I’ve only known Ellie for a few days, I know that this won’t be a hard task because she’s such a great dog!

Ellie is a gorgeous girl with a thick, soft red coat and fluffy tail, and she will be 2 years old on May 15th. I took her to the vet this week and am happy to report she is healthy and now up-to-date on all her vaccines. She has also been spayed and microchipped and both her fecal and heartworm tests came up negative.

She loves attention, belly rubs, and having her paws held and gets along great with our resident golden, Sydney. (We have also heard from her previous owner that she is great with all kids but haven’t been able to test her yet.) Ellie also hasn’t had any problems with our cat, other than sniffing her out of curiosity, but for the most part they ignore each other. She is also housetrained, doesn’t need a crate, and has been left alone with our dog in the house without any problems.

Ellie likes tennis balls and playing fetch with us and our other dog, and she is sometimes silly and even tries to play fetch with herself! She does not have any aggression or guarding issues with toys or treats so that is good as well. We have taken her for a few car rides and although she can be a little scared, she gets in and out with no problems. For the most part Ellie is very well behaved and knows commands like “sit”, “down” and “come.” She even let me trim her toenails the other day!

There are a few traits that Ellie needs to work on. First, she can be submissive and fearful to strangers, but mostly men. She does not bite or show aggression but mostly backs away and will bark. However, after she is introduced properly with petting and treats she will warm right up to them (as she did with my husband- now they are best friends!) Secondly, along with the fear Ellie can have some submissive urination. We have had no problems with her urinating inappropriately in the house except for twice when she was afraid, and both times were only a tiny spot (and a similar situation occurred at the vet). Finally, Ellie is a ball of energy when you come home after being gone and likes to jump on you to show how happy she is to see you! We have been working with her to make her stay down and usually she calms down after a minute or so – she’s learning!

I think it would be best if Ellie’s forever home included another dog to help her adjust and trust her human parents. She was very shy and timid when she first arrived in our foster care until she met our golden and instantly became a bubbling, energetic girl. Ellie is an absolute beauty and any family would be lucky to have her! Stay tuned for more updates.

Updates

Saturday, June 28, 2014

"Miss Ellie" turned 6 in May

I can't believe I've had her 4 1/2 years already. She weighs between 65 - 70 lbs. She hasn't even started to change color in her muzzle area yet. I've been really lucky, she has been really healthy, not even an ear infection. Her fur is a medium red with tufts of the crème color on her back end. Currently I have been unemployed since December, so you know what that means....yep.....she's even more spoiled. We go everywhere together and she tries to hide when I tell her she can't go with this time. When I am working, I have a dog walker that comes in mid-day to take her out for a short walk to do her business or maybe they head to the dog park for a romp.

She loves her tennis balls or any ball for that matter. She loves her stuffed toys as well and leaves them intact. She loves hanging out on the deck when we're home and she watches for her neighbor fur friends to come out. She will let me know they're there if I don't see them. All in all, Ellie has come along way since the day I brought her home. She has her favorite spot in the van when we go out. She sleeps in the bed if she wants to. Takes her baths very well, climbs right in the tub when I tell her to and does not shake until I have towel dried her for awhile. She still eats Blue Buffalo kibble. Sometime I add a tablespoon of canned in with the dry. She's cat friendly, does well around younger children and loves, so far all other dogs.

We even worked the Ragom booth at the State Fair last year for 3 hours. Ellie is my best pal.

All in all, Ellie & I are both the lucky ones.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Beautiful Ellie was returned to RAGOM because the husband did not feel like he was bonding with her. She has been here a week and has settled in nicely! She gets along fine with my two resident Golden's and pays attention to my crabby female. She does play with my young male but she also plays by herself! She is so cute! She will throw a ball or a rope and then pounce on it and do it again. She loves to chase a ball but is not so great about dropping it. I am working on helping her figure out that she won't get to chase it again if she doesn't. It is a slow process since she is happy to throw it for herself :)

Even though Ellie is great with kids, she probably needs a quieter home than is possible with children under 10. She does not need a physical fence. She does need to build confidence in new situations or patience with her insecurities. She has had only one episode of submissive urination and that is when I yelled at my Skye for eating the ENTIRE pizza off the counter. I know--yelling isn't good and it doesn't happen often here so that is good. She met my friend Tim without barking or being submissive.
 
She does get excited and has a little excited ritual that I am trying to eliminate by giving her absolutely no attention or spoken word when she does it. She will jump, paw whine and try to hug when I come home. It is slowly improving and she has learned the 'enough' command so that has helped too.
 
So, to recap:
OK without a fence
OK with kids over 10
OK with or without another dog.
Needs patience and confidence building.
 
I'd really love to find Ellie her forever family and she is welcome here until we get it right. If you think that might be you, please contact your placement advisor.

    

Friday, April 9, 2010

Ellie has been with us for almost 2 weeks now and it’s hard not to fall in love with her. She and our resident golden, Sydney, continue to get along very well and she has adjusted well to our daily routine. She got to meet our families during Easter weekend and it didn’t take her very long to warm up to each of them (and they all commented on what a sweet girl she is!). We only had problems with my brother who is very tall and probably a little intimidating to her. She had a few bouts of submissive urination for the first 2-3 times he was around her, but then was fine with him the rest of the weekend. For the most part, once you get to know what triggers these incidents you can avoid them fairly easily (for example, she is more likely to get scared and urinate if you grab her collar suddenly). But it would probably be a good idea for her forever family to take her through some positive motivational obedience training to help with these issues and build her confidence.

We have had a couple of big thunderstorms now while Ellie has been with us and are happy to report she does not seem to have any storm phobia whatsoever. She just goes about what she’s doing like nothing is wrong. On the nicer days we’ve had Ellie gets to be outside more which she really enjoys. She loves to run around and stretch her long legs and burn up some of her energy. In a fenced yard she is very good about staying close to us and always comes when called so we think her new home wouldn’t necessarily need a fence. Ellie’s new favorite thing this week is dirt – specifically my parent’s garden and the flower bed next to our house, but any spot will do. She loves to dig in it, play in it, and lay in it! We have to keep an eye on her to prevent the digging but mostly she likes to roll around in it with her tennis ball and act like a puppy.

Today, I tried brushing Ellie’s teeth for the first time with good results. She liked the flavor of the doggie toothpaste and didn’t fight me on brushing them. She also must have been bored while I was at school today because I came home to find some Kleenex stolen from the bathroom wastebasket and shredded into the pieces on the floor. This is the first time she’s done anything like this and hopefully if we leave her doggie toys out we can prevent this in the future. At night Ellie is good about curling up in her favorite spot on the floor and sleeping while we’re doing homework or watching TV. That’s all I have for now – I know many have become Ellie fans so we’re working on finding her a great family! Stay tuned!