Photo Gallery & Brag Book

New Stories Coming Soon! If you have adopted a dog from us and have a success story, please submit it to us. Some of the pictures below may get larger by clicking on them.

Success Story/Update 12/2005

Rush is doing great! He has settled in well. Our other Golden, Maggie, was a little bent out of shape at his arrival, but has since deeply bonded with him. In fact, one day my husband took Rush out for a half-day-long walk (too long of a walk for old Maggie Girl) and Maggie was devastated that Rush was gone. Maggie is much more interested in getting Rush's attention than ours—she LOVES playing with him, and Rush will always oblige her with a romp. However, he really loves the attention of the less furry creatures in our house, namely us. The kids, my husband Josh, and I are very attached to Rush. We love him. He has not only made his place in our home but also in our hearts. My youngest, Seth, who is almost five years old, said, “Mommy, I am glad that Rush is a part of our family.” Rush has settled in so much that he has become a little territorial and sometimes gives us a heads-up growl when unfamiliar people or dogs walk by his house.

He has taken to training really well. In fact, he is even a little more obedient than Maggie (who has won a first-place ribbon in obedience). He no longer jumps on people or surfs counters. He knows SIT, STAY, DOWN, COME, OFF. He’s been working really hard his leash-walking, too. He was always fine on lead, but only when the walk was in our neighborhood and if he was walking ahead of us. He was a challenge if we were in public places or if he wasn't in the lead (and he is a big and very strong boy!). But he’s been working hard on the whole “leash” thing and is doing better. We have been slowly working our way up to taking another walk around Town Lake (we're not quite there yet).

When we brought Rush home, he had a skin condition due to food allergies, he was a little overweight, and he was uncomfortable with the stairs in our house. But with the help of his new vet, Rush has his skin condition under control, his fur is now nice and soft, and he’s even lost a few pounds: he was 82 lbs and is now 79 lbs. And he’s now very comfortable going up the stairs by himself. What is really cute is in the evening when the family sits down to have dinner and the dogs are asked to leave the kitchen, Rush, if tired, will disappear. The first time this happened, I discovered where Rush had gone. He had headed upstairs, jumped on our bed and was sound asleep, snoring.

He has the heart of a Golden. He loves having a yard, a pool and a family who love him very much.

We'd like to thank Golden Ribbon Rescue for all that you do, rescuing and helping Goldens and for making our “match.”

Sincerely,
Laura Abramowitz

----- Original Message -----
From: Amy
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 9:15 PM
Subject: Sunny's Success Story!

Hi Brenda! Just wanted to send everyone at GRR a wonderful holiday wish, and
to keep everyone updated on our beloved Sunny! While we may have only had
him since September, he is already a cherished member of our family. I
previously sent in his Halloween costume picture. He had the BEST time
trick-or-treating! Our girls complained a little though. It seems that Sunny
got more attention than they did! We had several people stop us so that they
could take his picture! Sunny still goes by "Sunny".... well, kind-of. He
also goes by "Sunny Bunny" and "Bunny boy". He loves it when the girls call
him that! It's like he knows it is a "love name". We just got back from our
2nd vet visit last week. Sunny is a picture of health! Everyone at the vets
office loves him, and can't believe he is almost 12 yrs-old! It turns out he
is hypo-thyroid, so we have had him on thyroid medicine for about 6 weeks,
and he has already lost 3 pounds! Speaking of, he has a birthday coming up
at the end of December. We'll be sure and send in birthday pictures! I also
think someone has been secretly giving him lessons on mastering the "pitiful
look", as this is a new habit. When I am sitting on the couch or in bed, he
is usually curled up at my feet-- I guess I am the Alpha human in our house!
haha! Don't tell my husband I said that! His latest trick, though, is to
slowly and gently lay his chin on my leg, and look up at me, as if to say,
"I know you just rubbed my belly for 30 minutes straight, and the girls
brushed me for almost an hour earlier, but I could reeeaaallllyyy use some
more attention. Whadda ya say?" Funny, because he's doing it right now as I
type this letter! He has also been to visit Grandma a couple of times. She
thinks he is wonderful, too, and says he is her best behaved grandchild! :)
Anyway, I just wanted to say how much we appreciate all that GRR does, and
that we are now "Forever Golden" people! I don't see how we could ever live
without a Golden again. Thank you for bringing us our Sunny!
Amy

Photos of Sunny

Hi everyone!

I’ve read a lot of the ”Success Stories” and everyone is so pleased and happy with their new family members. Well, so are we!

First of all, we changed her name from “Nina” to “Zoey”. That took all of a day for her to respond to her new name. Having half the kids on our street come visit her on her first day home and call her Zoey probably expedited matters. She’s also very smart and eager to please. As with our previous dog, I’m training Zoey to obey by voice commands and corresponding hand signals. So, in less then a week, she sits before she goes out a door and sits while I get her food. She was quick to pick up that she couldn’t beg at the dinner table. We put her bed in eye shot and she lays down till we’re done eating. We’re working on “stay” now. She sleeps in her crate though we don’t close the door. She does just fine.

I took her out for some leash training. Again, she was a quick learner and did great. But she isn’t crazy about sitting when I stopped to cross the street or just stopped walking. Too much going on outside. Our front door has a lot of glass so she likes to look out and see what’s going on. She sees her new brothers, our sons, going out that door. There’s a ton of kids that play in our cul-de-sac and a funny looking dog named “Shiner” that she wants to play with. She’s had “play dates” with a couple of other Goldens already. One is a GRR dog that our friends adopted a couple of years ago. The other is a neighbor’s dog. She seems to like to go for runs with me. I’m starting off slow and short distances. She doesn’t pull and stays right next to me, but she sometimes bumps into me. She’ll get the hang of it.

She hadn’t gone up or down stairs before, so all that was new. At first she was a little timid with our deck stairs but it’s the only way to get to the backyard. Now it’s a breeze. Her eyes lit up when she saw our pool. She put one paw in and decided it was a little too cold to swim. I can tell it’s going to be great fun when it gets warmer. But I’ll probably have to train her when it’s appropriate to go swimming and when she’s just out to do her business and come back in.

After a lot of coaxing, we got Zoey to go upstairs inside our house. She went to the game room where Sam, our Guinea Pig, has his cage. I thought Sam would really be scared to see Zoey. But much to our surprise, they both like each other! Sam came up and they were nose to nose. We typically leave the cage door open because Sam doesn’t jump out. And Zoey just puts her whole head in. She also whines to get Sam out of the cage,. I don’t know if she thinks it’s one of her pups or what, but she really likes Sam!

She has incredible house manners. She’s very quiet in the house. But we quickly discovered that she doesn’t like it when my son practices playing his trumpet! When we get ready for bed she goes in her crate that’s in our bedroom. Now we leave the crate door open and she doesn’t come out till I wake up. She loves sitting still to get her hair combed. She loves to “play fight” with the boys. She’s very gentle and the boys love it!

Zoey tends to follow me every where and unless the boys pick up a ball. I had to take Christmas gifts to a neighbor and my husband said she waited for me at the front door. She was there when I got back.

So that’s Zoey for the past two weeks! She’s really incredible and a very gentle soul. Everyone that has met her thinks she’s wonderful. We feel we are very lucky and blessed. She fits very nicely in our family. I look forward to Christmas when she’ll meet my extended family.

Thank you GRR! Y’all do a wonderful job and she was very much worth the wait!

Visit Zoey's picture gallery