Annie (Mandy 13-055) [1]

February 25, 2013

Mandy 13-055, a beautiful blonde girl, arrived in RAGOM land on February 15. She is a 3-year-old (BD: 12-05-09) girl surrendered by her owner to a Good Samaritan who in turn made sure she entered the RAGOM fold. She was surrendered because of "inadequate mothering skills" but she won't have to worry about mothering any more. Mandy is being fostered in rural Rochester.

Her vet examination went well, her vaccinations were brought up-to-date, she is heart worm negative, but like many of us, she is overweight. When she returns for her booster shot in a few weeks, the vet will perform a thyroid test to check if that might be the root of her weight gain along with a thinning hair pattern over her back. These issues could also be caused by a poor grade of food but she is now on a highly rated grain-free food. Her target weight should be 80-85 pounds so she is a fairly good-sized girl. Because her ears had some discharge (the right more than the left), the vet cleaned them out good and prescribed medication for a yeast infection to be used every 3-4 days for the next month. Her spay operation will be in a few weeks.

Mandy is a kind and gentle soul. She has not shown any resource guarding with toys or food. In fact, shortly after she got here I found our cat with her in the crate eating her food. Mandy totally ignores the outside cats too. We have had no trouble with her going in and out of doors, up and down steps or going into her crate. She sleeps all night without any fuss and patiently waits until we let her out in the morning. Thus far Mandy has had no potty accidents in the house but we are diligent about letting her out with our resident dog every 3-4 hours. Today we had church, a potluck dinner following the service and then the business meeting--she was crated longer than 4 hours and did just fine. We babysat our 3-year-old grandchild two days last week and Mandy was super with her. On Saturday, I had four grandchildren and our daughter's black lab/GR cross here. She met Sadie without any problems at all--and sometimes Sadie is very picky about her doggy friends. When we are outside, she follows very closely at your side and has shown no inclination to bolt out the door. She runs up on the porch to wait for us when it is time to come in.

She is starting to get very busy in the house. She will pick up toys and stash them in her crate or make a pile in her "safe spot" and lay by them. It is funny to watch her--tonight she emptied the entire toy box piece-by-piece on the living room floor. She has also been going back and forth between the office and living room so she is becoming much more comfortable in the house. Right now she is sleeping with our dog on the office floor while I am typing. She prefers to spend more time out of her crate than in it.

Because of her previous situation, Mandy will need a fenced yard, children over 10 so the play patterns and fast actions of smaller children do not scare her, and a resident dog to teach her more social graces (she loves the companionship of our dog). She has proven to be a very resilient young girl and will be a great companion for some lucky family. More to come as we get to know her better and learn the little ins and outs of her personality.