Blue

Blue – Courtesy Post
Blue is a healthy, neutered, 70 pound, 5 year old Golden Retriever who has been with us since February 1, 2023. He is a great companion, a motivated quick learner, and loves to play games. He is surprisingly puppy-like at times, bounding and romping around in the yard. But when we are relaxing at home, he is very chill and generally matches his activity level to ours. In keeping with his breed, he loves to swim and when given the opportunity he will jump in the ocean and just swim around. Blue is very people-oriented and is gentle and loving with people he knows such as family and regular visitors or workers. He is suspicious of strangers and barks until properly introduced – then is quite congenial if he knows we are comfortable with the people. Blue gets anxious when he knows we are going out because he is afraid he will be left behind, although we have had no problem behaviours when we have had to leave him alone in the house for short periods. Blue doesn’t get up on the furniture unless invited – he relaxes and sleeps on his pillow on the floor. Blue is completely house trained, and has a strong desire to go outside when he needs to – he lets us know with a little nudge and if that’s unsuccessful, a soft whine. In a controlled environment Blue performs well at basic commands such as Sit, Stay, Come, Down, Heel, and Shake a Paw. He is less reliable when agitated, fearful, or distracted. Fetch is a work in progress. When we walk Blue on leash, he is reactive to dogs he doesn’t know when they get close; he barks, gets excited/anxious, and surges on the leash. We have been taking private lessons with a professional dog trainer since April to work on Blue’s reactiveness. For now, our trainer recommends that Blue wear a muzzle when we go for walks where we might meet other dogs – partly because of his reactivity, but also to let the other owners know that they should be careful with proximity and introductions. We have trained Blue to wear the muzzle comfortably when we go for walks. Although previously crate trained we have not used a crate with Blue because we haven’t needed to, and we worry the crate would escalate his anxiety.

We adopted Blue from a family member who was unable to keep him because of work and family commitments leaving not enough time for the dog – in addition Blue had become reactive to other dogs and strangers. When we brought Blue to our home we realized that our original SPCA rescue dog who we have had for 2 ½ years was not compatible with Blue despite several introductory socialization sessions prior to this. On that day, our dog went after Blue aggressively guarding her resources – us and our home. Our trainer has advised us that this behaviour is so entrenched that it may not be extinguishable, which means that the two dogs may never be able to live together safely. In addition, keeping them together would be very stressful for both dogs and us. So we have made the incredibly difficult decision to re-home Blue although we love him dearly. Blue’s new home would be best if there are no other dogs and no children. He does not wander but needs a fenced yard (at least 5 feet) to prevent reactive responses to other dogs going by. He is very people-oriented and responds well to personal training so needs someone who can spend a lot of time with him, someone who is knowledgeable about reactive dogs and even better has experience training a reactive dog.

If interested please fill out an application form and we will send to the family. This is a courtesy post and we have never med Blue.