Leah & Reina
Reina & me the day we brought her home.
Welcome to my site please look around and let me know what you think by signing the guestbook.
I lost my other 2 golden retrievers in 2005. 1 from old age and liver failure the other to a heart attack. Since losing my dog Gypsy in Dec. 2005 I started looking for another golden retriever. Both my other 2 were great search and rescue dogs as well as family pets. I was looking for another puppy that could do both jobs. I looked at lots of litters. I was looking for a female puppy that scored well on a puppy aptitude test. Click here to Reina's scores.
When we brought Reina home I introduced her to a crate. She did
not like the crate at all. So we
started her out just going in it to be fed and at others times during the day
for about 5 minutes at a time. She was very good at night (unless you tried to
put her in the crate) and would usually only as to go out once. She really liked
our fleece blankets and when given a choice would always find one to sleep on.
We finally gave her, her own. We tried putting it into the crate and that
helped, after about a month she would sleep in her crate at night.
We
kept plenty of toys around for her to play with and had very little problems
with
chewing stuff she shouldn't. Of course being a puppy she chewed a lot but she
was content with toys and chew bones as long as you left her several to choose
from. Her favorite toy inside was the kong or the ball, but the kong seemed to
offer more, she could either drag it around by the rope or chew on the rubber
part. When she played with the ball even at 8 weeks old she was using her paws
to bat it around. She prefers to play with us but if we are busy she has no
problem entertaining herself. Just like a child though if she is quit to long,
go check on her, she is probably doing something she shouldn't be.....LOL.
Most of January was us getting to know Reina and her us. We
started socializing her to people and traveling in the car. After 3 days we
started taking walks in the woods. As her en
durance
got better we started going for longer walks. We practiced walking logs,
crossing small streams, etc. We walk to a pond near the house several times a
week but so far she doesn't want to go swimming even with Arwen (my Norwegian
Elkhound) going in. I am not pushing her to get wet, its very cold and anyway
she is a golden retriever she will be in the water before you know it. Summer is
a good time to learn how much fun the water can be. As she is walking through
the woods she picks up sticks to play with.
I will be updating this page as I get time and we start training. Please check back often.
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