Success story: Shyanne (#461)

Our dear Shyanne (#461) has found the perfect home for herself. She will have quite the life on the water and traveling. However, she will still be a land lover as she had her first experience at a dog park and just loved it.

Shyanne has been adopted by Ken and Donna, both retired, and their ten year old cat. Ken and Donna live on a house boat, have a wonderful boat to recreate in and a fifth wheel travel trailer to vacation in with the entire family. Is this the life or what?

Bon voyage, Shyanne, and don't forget to send a post card once in a while.

Latest Update: December 4, 2003

Wanted to give you a head's up on what Miss Shyanne has been up to the last 3+ weeks since coming to our home to join our family.

Shyanne came to live with us on November 6, 2003 and since that time she is settling in nicely. She is really a love!! She always wants to be touched and petted and loves to play with toys. She likes to chew on the toys a lot, so we are getting the non-destructable kind. We are working with her on some obedience training to get her to walk better on the leash and to stay when we need her to, so that she doesn't run out of the door. She loves to play ball, we have discovered, and likes to do this better then anything. We have to hide the ball if we want to make sure she goes potty when we are walking with her.

She and the cat are getting along fine. She wants to run and play with "Taz", but the cat is 10 years old and doesn't really want to play. So, they tolerate each other well.

Shyanne has adapted really well to our lifestyle. She loves to ride in the car and truck and we have taken her in the RV to Woodland, WA and Waldport, OR. We took her with us to our friends house in Gig Harbor, who have a Springer Spaniel, and she was a great house guest. It took just a little while for her to adjust to the other dog and they got along fine. She also had her first boating trip over the Thanksgiving weekend, when we took the boat out for 4 days to Coon Island on the Multnomah Channel. We kept her on the leash when we walked her on the dock, since she is unfamiliar with the river. Once up on the island, she loved running free and smelling everything!! She has a real nose on her and when she get a scent she loves it. She doesn't really know about water, so while we are in Arizona this winter we will get her into some water so she will know how much fun it can be.

She has settled down a lot from the first week and is not quite so anxious. She does bark at other dogs and strangers so we are working on that, but it may just be that she is still unsure of her surroundings. We have left her for a few hours at a time in the boat house, RV and boat and she just settles down and sleeps. She sleeps through the night and is not in much of a hurry in the mornings to go outside. We took her to the dog wash one day and that was another experience she had never had. But she did real well after we talked to her and told her everything would be OK.

All in all, she is a sweeite pie and is fitting in very nicely with our family and our lifestyle. We will keep in touch with you via e-mail on how she is doing. We are all taking off on December 3, 2003 to head down to California and Arizona for the winter, so she will have a lot more things to experience. Don't worry about her. She is doing fine!!!!

Also, wanted to let you know what a small world we live in. While we were in McMinnville at the Valley RV, we met another one of the Golden Bond Rescue adopters. They had just adopted an 11-year-old to join their family of another dog and a 2 year old child. He said they and the dog were doing great at getting settled in and we both talked about the adoption process and thought it was very good to have all the interviews and home visits.

Thanks again for our "daughter" — she is definitely a part of the family already.

Ken and Donna

Latest Update: January 21, 2004

Wanted to give you an update on Shyanne. We are in Arizona and have been visiting different places, so Shyanne has been able to see many people and many dogs. She got to go to the Doggy Beach on Coronado Island in San Diego, the Doggy Park in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. She gets along great with the other dogs in that setting, however, when we tried to get her friendly with my niece's chocolate lab, she had a real problem and became very agressive towards her, so there are things we have too work on. She's gotten lots better about barking at people and other dogs, I think she was just nervous or anxious. At the doggy beach she got so excited chasing the ball and following the other dogs, she ended up in the ocean and it didn't seem to bother her. Before that she didn't want anything to do with water. Now that we are in Parker, AZ, Ken has been working with her on swiming in the Colorado River and going after the ball. She fell in love with the water and going out to get the ball. She is a ball crazy person and also loves stuffed animals, so the trailer is really full of her toys. She and the cat are doing great together and the cat teases her sometimes into chasing her. We have been going to my mom's every few days and she loves playing ball with my mom and today, she discovered her stuffed bears and has been playing with them and running around the house. I just got the request for photos for the calendar, so we have some good shots, so will find a good one and send it off. All in all, Shyanne is doing wonderful and has really adjusted to her 4 wheel dog house and all the traveling we are doing. We have been at the beach, in the desert and in campgrounds with grass and trees and she loves it all. Can't get enough loving and ball chasing. Thanks again for everything. We'll keep in touch.

Ken, Donna and Shyanne

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