dee lee

If you can live with the shedding (& it is pretty full-on), a GR sounds perfect. I have yet to meet one that doesn't have a happy, loving disposition. My Goldie is fabulous with both my cat and kids. From the ones that I have met, I feel that GRs are very similar to spaniels, the same type of happy go lucky, people dogs. If you are concerned about a boisterous pup around a baby, do as I did and adopt an older one! Trust me, you won't regret it. ;)

Morning for us. Either early (6ish) before everyone else is awake or after school dropoff at 9am. Unfortunately evenings are not possible because my OH often works nights & I'm stuck home with the kids.

The cat is the boss here. Poor Honey (27kg, 4yo GR), Jaz (small, grey and 15yo moggy) constantly tells her off and bosses her around. Nightly we have a ritual of Honey lying in her bed, Jaz comes and sits right in front of her and stares at her until she gets out. Then this tiny cat gets in and curls up in the giant bed. Last week I had to lock Jaz inside after she continually tried to steal Honey's bone from her! I figured there was only so much a wimpy dog could bear, best not to test her. Jaz used to hiss a bit if Honey passed her in a doorway, but after copping a mouth full of fluffy tail too many times she has given up.

Mindy looks beautiful, and she is still young- that lovely supple body will no doubt ease into a lovely strong, but lean shape as she matures. Good work Aussielover! I started a similar thread about a year ago after being told by heaps of people my goldie was too skinny. Bah to them, I say! :D Honey is very very fit & healthy, and being a rescue dog, I feel strongly that I need to keep her like this to give her joints the best chance they can get, as I have no idea about her parentage. I just feel sad for the shuffling fat retrievers I see around everywhere. This is Honey earlier this year at the beach with my daughter.

I'm another who much prefers large dogs. I have nothing against small dogs, its just a personal preference. I live in a terrace house that sounds a lot smaller than your town house- in fact my whole block is smaller than your yard. We have a Golden Retriever that we adopted from Golden Retriever Rescue as a 2 year old (she is now 4). She is perfectly happy in our small place and she would be fine sharing with a maltese (just not the feral on next door! ). She gets lots of exercise at the local parks, we jog or play fetch every morning. Then she sleeps the rest of the day inside. The size of the house/yard is not as important as the level of interaction and amount of exercise the dog gets. The extra effort that is required when keeping a dog in a small area, means that such dogs are treated much better than the poor dog thats locked outside in the suburbs etc, that doesnt get walked because the yard is big enough for "self exercising". Having said that, not all dogs would be easy to live with in a townhouse, an adult may be a better option as has been suggested. Certainly worked for me. :D

I jog with my GR four days a week. Keeps me fit & trim & tires her out. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but if you both get fit slowly together it's a WIN WIN. On the days we don't do that, we play fetch at the local parks. They are big enough for us to avoid other dogs.

In my area it isnt just the junkies who have their dogs offlead, its lawyers, architects and accountants. A couple of weeks ago I saw a young staffy X wandering alone down our street- lost. I locked my dog in the yard and collected it. I called the number on the collar and the owner was visiting the art gallery at the top of our street. He came and got his dog- of course too cool for a lead.:rolleyes: A week later, my OH tells me that he saw the same dog wandering about again and later the owner looking for it. :rolleyes: Then a couple of days later, it was in the fenced park in our street with the owner and he had to call it away from growling at our dog!! So not only is it always offlead, but its DA! Most recently I have sighted it sitting outside the gallery- OFFLEAD. *sigh* Might have to give the ranger a call ;).

Honey usually does 2 a day- one on our early morning run and one several hours later when I walk her before I go to work. For some reason this has changed to her doing 2 early in the morning as well as the later one. God knows why, nothing has changed that I can think of. I'm not worried. The consistency of poo is perfect, she gets fed a small cup of Nutro twice a day (to prevent bloat) plus a dried ear (beef atm) and gets lots of exercise. I wouldn't worry.

Honey LOVES a cuddle, she is an absolute tart, but she gets too excited and it becomes an interactive sport!! At nights I read to my daughters on one of their beds. They insist Honey must come up too, then we spend the next half hour with her wriggling and rolling on top of us while I'm trying to read!! Much giggling & shrieking ensues. I have sustained quite a bit of bruising from her lurve so most of the time I administer cuddles while I am on the couch and she is on the floor- its safer! Often I will let her give me a standing full body hug- we both love it. After a couple of tearful episodes when the kids tried it and fell over (on her back legs she is taller than them), she is only allowed to do it with me- or any other poor adult sucker she can entice!

Lol, having one of each...I can tell you my JRT would most definitely kill anything that moves...my GR on the other hand...well she would chase it, but that would be about all lol Until today, I thought my girl would only chase too!! I'm rethinking a few situations right now...

Oh you soooo should have another one Dee!!! You have a lovely home for one!!!! I honestly was sure that Bubby loved being an only dog and he did but he LOVES his Bitty even more!!!! We have all the love in the world, but just not the room. I'm looking further afield for a new house now so we can get a bigger yard... One day...

Oh I havent seen pics of Bub and little Bitty since she's grown!! They are soooooooooo gorgeous!!!!! I want another goldie too. *stamps foot*

No, thank god! Though she did go to pick it up instead of her ball a bit later. I shrieked "leave it!!" in a very high pitched voice!! Luckily she did. SnoPaws, I can relate to the blood on white fur- YUCK!!! I had to wash Honey's ruff afterwards before I could touch her.

Between my cat, who gets the mice, & Honey, we certainly have rodents covered! Lol, I wasn't so sure it was fantastic having to clean the blood & guts off Honey, then having to carry the rat to the bin though!! I can well do without that! It seems to me rather unusual for a GR to be so good at it! I'm still a bit shocked.

Well I have discovered one of Honey's hidden talents. She is a skilled ratter! Just took her to the park in the next street for a quick game of fetch before it started raining. A few minutes of playing, she stops dead, her ears go up, then she bolts to something I can't see. Next thing i know, a couple of shakes of her head and there's a dead rat! I easily called her back & she had no interest in it after that. I was shocked! (& grossed out, she had some guts on her !) I know she has a bit of drive, but so far thats only shown in her love of chasing & retrieving. I had no idea my sweet little cuddler had it in her!!!! A reminder that dogs will be dogs- I guess I won't have to worry about rats in our house now. Does anyone know, are all breeds good at ratting? I would not have guessed a GR would be, prior to this.

Its not the colour of his fur- its his glowing eyes!!

I LOVE black dogs (and cats), they are my personal favorite colour. I would have one in a heart beat, but I have a GR for temperament, not for colour- not that black dogs have bad temps- just that goldies are what I was after! If GRs came in black, I'd have one.

Oh towels, I forgot towels... :D Anyone got any remotely attractive way to store them? We have about 6 in our rarely used laundry tub.

Oh those are great! :D Perfect for small houses! I will have to get one. I'm so jealous of all of you with cupboards and even rooms (!) for your dog stuff. I have one little basket full of doggy crap stuffed into the laundry cupboard, and her leads and doggy bags are in the (purely decorative) front fireplace. Toys? Everywhere!! Our floor is constantly littered with shoes and squeaky balls- Honey must always be transporting something in her mouth from one room to the next.

I wondered about that, I spent ages looking for the offending posts earlier, all to no avail. Was very confuddled! :D

I have this image in my head now of the OP convulsing and being drawn towards the computer- "can ... not... resist... Offtopic... please Troy... make... it... STOOOOOOP!!!"

*cough*. Famous last words, Dee. You wait - someone will find something else to whinge about Yep, you are right. I did think that as I typed. ;) Still, they always make for very entertaining threads.

Me neither. I have never used the new post option, mostly because I only pop into about 4 forums and have no interest in the breeding or showing forums. Sounds like a good upgrade though, will make everyone happy.

Honestly, I can understand the situation- many of us don't overthink the ins and outs of living with dogs. You take what you think are reasonable precautions, or, as in this case, procrastinate over fixing a hutch "next week". Then when it all falls apart, get upset with the perpetrator. I personally found it hard not to punish my previous dog for destroying 4 freshly planted gardenia bushes. I roared at her upon discovering it. I can certainly see how locking her out for the night might have made myself feel better. Killing the step daughter's GPs would be much harder to bear- I would have been distraught. I don't think the OP's dog would have been too traumatised by a smack & night out because of it.

My GR is not interested in playing with most dogs and is generally very passive, but if a dog pesters her enough she will grumble. Its perfectly normal dog behaviour. However I will always try and prevent that happening by always keeping walking & intercepting any pushy dogs that approach us. I just stand in between and say firmly - Go-away! or Shoo! It usually works. The majority of dogs arent that persistent. Stuff the other irresponsible twits who are happy for their dogs to bother yours. Who cares what they think? Your dog is what is important to you.