Emily

Profile

Let me introduce Emily. She is a Yellow Lab mix who came into RAGOM recently as a stray. She had wandered onto a farm and didn’t want to leave. The people there were kind enough to report her to a local vet. As I understand it, the vet came to pick her up and boarded her for a while.  The vet knew and called one of our RAGOM volunteers. Lucky Emily was soon brought under RAGOM’s sheltering umbrella.

Emily is a very nice dog. She is young – estimated to be about 1 to 2 years. We’ll split the difference and call her one-and-a-half years old. She is up-to-date on her shots. She tested negative for heartworm and is now on heartworm and flea/tick preventatives. She was spayed on March 22, and weighed 47 pounds at that time. She is on the lean side, but looks good. In fact, she is a very pretty dog.

It seems like Emily has been in a house before and is housebroken. We have not had any accidents at all. She will take an opportunity to counter surf, however, so counters must be kept free of temptations. She is a young dog, and needs training. I took her for a walk for the first time yesterday. She was so very excited! She pulled pretty hard, but not as hard as our own. I may try a Gentle Leader with her next time.

She has only been with us for a week now. FD (foster dad) did a long transport with her, bringing her up from southern Minnesota to our northern Twin City suburb. By the time they arrived her, she had totally bonded with him. He was her safe spot and she could have been glued to him and not stayed any closer. She was fine meeting our dogs – Lucy, a 4-year-old Golden Retriever, and Benny, a 9-year-old Shih Tzu.  She is still too timid to respond to Lucy’s attempts to get her to play, and she cowers when Benny growls at her. FD took her spay stitches out the other day. We turned her on her back on the bed. I stayed by her head to help steady her, but she didn’t struggle or flinch as the stitches were removed. 

We did not want to leave her out at first while we slept, so crated her the first few nights. We also crate her when she is unsupervised during the day, which is not often. It was a struggle to get her into the crate at first, but once in she settled down without a peep and stayed quiet. She will now go into the crate with gentle coaxing.

So far, she has been one of the easiest of our foster dogs to blend in with the family. But, she is just barely starting to come out of her shell. As she becomes more confident, her personality will emerge.

She has not been cat tested yet, but while Emily was boarded at the vet clinic, she had contact with both the vet’s children and with the RAGOM volunteer who would come visit Emily with her daughter. Emily seems like she will be a gentle dog.

If you are interested in Emily, please contact your placement advisor.