Success Story: Whisper (#1010)

Adopted March 2004

Whisper (#1010) has a checkered background, to say the least. Her first year was spent with an owner who is now in jail. She received little attention and even less love. She was rescued from that situation by a lovely lady, named Janet, who already had six other dogs who had been rescued from other bad homes. Because of her health, Janet found that she could no longer maintain so many dogs and called Golden Bond on behalf of Whisper. Although Whisper is not all golden, she had all the potential to become an agility dog and her personality is true golden. Her warm, gentle eyes can melt you at once. Enter Jeanne and Pat and their five (yes, five!) children, ranging in age from 8 to 21. Some of them wanted a dog to take to 4H and others wanted just a playmate and friend. Whisper won all their hearts at first meeting and is now with her forever family in Corvallis. How's that for a fairy tale ending?

Update: April 6, 2004

Whisper is doing great. It's hard to think of how fast the time goes — it's been a week already!

Some things we've learned about her:

She loves to hug and be hugged — VERY tactile. She enjoys "retrieving" the rubber duckies out of the bathtub while the younger children are in there and hauling them off down the hall. She's got a sense of humor. The kids love this of course, and encourage her in her treks. (She has an amazing aversion to the water itself however. We're trying to break her in to liking it so we can bathe her. She seems to be terrified of it. We've tried an outside sprinkler, letting her be with us during bathtime, going to the Dirty Dog self grooming dog bath place, all to no avail. Any insights? We'll keep going gently with her, and letting her set the pace and see if she can learn to play a bit with it.)

Even though I'm researching a raw foods diet, she appreciates cooked, deboned chicken breast that's been left on the counter. Mmmm... She loves most adults, especially males (surprise!) and is totally thrown off by kids under the age of about 5. They seem scary, but she is beginning to be curious, not just afraid. Some dark haired adult females cause nervousness as well.

She is SMART and is learning to sit more consistently on demand, to stay, off and down. We'll begin obedience classes with her tonight as she seems to do very well with having her mind stimulated. She is beginning to catch on that we're not going to leave her someplace when we go visiting.

She can play catch with the kids for 4-5 hours straight — is quite the athlete! She likes Licorice, the neighbor's Lab mix, and also the greyhound, Turbo.

The girls' friend came over on Saturday with her camera, so hopefully some photos came out and we'll get those to you as soon as we can. Daniel, our guy with Down's, is liking her too. He is proud of himself for his bravery in petting her and communicating with her. Robert, the 8 yr. old, loves her dearly, except for when she slept on his bed and pushed him into the wall at 2 a.m. :) Like I said, she's VERY tactile.

She's just a sweetheart, and seems to absolutely love being part of the family. I think the fear stuff isn't going to be a problem, seeing how quickly she is adjusting. She's settling in quite well I think considering her past, and for how busy her first week was!

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