Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:48 pm Post subject: Long Termer Lucky with Hope Rescue REHOMED
Lucky is a 4 year old Lab x Collie and is currently on foster in Milton Keynes.
Poor Lucky was abandoned by her previous owner, then found herself at the pound and then in foster so her new owners will need to be patient and let her take introductions to new things and new people slowly. She is a delightful girl and is very loving and trusting and when she gets to know you will make a wonderful and loving companion.
She really doesn’t like to be left and will cry and bark initially. We would prefer her new home to have limited time away from her and be willing to start her home alone training from scratch and build it up very gradually. Ideally she would love her new owner to not work, be retired, work from home or have a dog friendly place of work.
Lucky could live with children 8+ and is cat friendly in the home but see's them as fair game when outside. There is no malice she just thinks it's a great laugh!
Agility could also be an option for Lucky, she has a huge gazelle style jump and takes direction very well. Although not essential, she would like and benefit from classes such as those for the KC Good Citizen awards as she responds well to reward based training and continuing such classes through the different levels would be great socialisation for her and really build her confidence.
Lucky would like a quiet home, not one in a busy street or main road. She would like an active home where her people have lots of time to take her for walks and spend time helping her trust and increase her confidence, along with teaching her new things. She would love a good sized secure garden with room to wander and for her people to play with her.
All Hope Rescue dogs are neutered, vaccinated, wormed, flea treated and microchipped prior to rehoming. A homecheck will be required, and you will need to come and meet the dog with your own dogs and family. Hope Rescue rehomes throughout the UK. A Pre-Home Interest Form can be downloaded from www.hoperescue.org.uk and should be returned to dogs@hoperescue.org.uk
“For people who haven’t met Lucky (or Lucky-Lulu-Belle to me), I’ve been fostering this lovely girl for a year plus now and she really is a lovely houseguest. She would be such an easy girl to keep but if I did, OH says no more fostering so this girl is looking for her own forever home.
She’s still shy when she first greets new people and will sometimes hide behind my legs for a couple of minutes but with some time and patience, she will come around and take a treat or sometimes roll over for a tummy tickle. Once she gets to know you, she is very loving and adores cuddles. I keep telling her she's a tiny bit too big to be a lap dog but she pretends not to here me.
Lucky is fully housetrained and not at all destructive in the home. She is great with my 9 cats and 2 dogs and has been good with all children she has met. In fact she has a fab time babysitting with me and playing football with my 7 year old nephew! She also travels really well in the car (boot).
Lucky knew a couple of commands (sit and paw) when she arrived and has since learned ‘down’, ‘come’, ‘stay’, ‘leave’, ‘take it’, ‘wee wees’, ‘in your bed’ and ‘off’ although she will sometimes ‘choose’ to not hear me. She will also now sit and wait for her meals until she is given the go ahead to eat. She is very responsive to reward based training and I’m sure she would love to learn more commands and maybe even some tricks in her new home.
In light of her shyness, I have been trying to get her out and about as much as possible to increase her confidence. She’s been to village fetes, to different pet shops, visiting friends and family and out for the odd pub lunch and has shown herself to be the sort of dog you can take anywhere!
LuluBelle has also been coming to agility classes with one of my dogs and has really enjoyed it. As she has really bonded with me, she is very responsive as I direct her around the course. However, she is also happy for one of the girls to take her around the course although she does sometimes run back to me for a little reassurance. She is so keen to please and works really hard. As this is something that is new to her, she has picked it up very quickly, loving the jumps in particular. She also works ahead so could be a little star in the making and it would be lovely if new owners wanted to pursue this! Lucky also loves the fuss she gets there now that she is starting to get to know the people in the class. She also has fun playing with and chasing the other dogs in the play session at the end of the class.
Lucky has had a few challenges since being here – separation anxiety being one of them. She now only follows me from room to room around 50% of the time, which is a huge improvement and shows that she will settle in her new home, with a little time and patience. I have also managed to increase her home alone time up to 3 hours occasionally, as long as she is very well exercised off lead beforehand. She also no longer barks when left (unless I take one of the other dogs out and then she protests but stops when I’m out of sight). I do think that she may well revert back to both following and barking when left when she goes to her forever home but as the last few weeks have shown, if her home alone time is initially very minimal and then built up slowly to a maximum of a few hours, ideally with another gentle, friendly dog for company, she will settle quite nicely.
I still haven’t cracked her barking at strange noises though. This can be noises outside, knocks at the door, at people through the window, people on the other side of the fence (even though she knows them). She will also bark if trying to goad one of my dogs into playing with her or if all 3 are playing quite excitably. It has reduced and we have been teaching her ‘quiet’ but sometimes pure excitement or adrenaline do still get the better of her.
Lucky really would love a home where someone has lots of time to spend with her, walking, playing games and snuggling up for cuddles and a fuss. She is an active girl so will need plenty of exercise. She would love some kind of doggie activity whether agility or obedience and they would really help build her confidence. Once she overcomes her initial shyness she bonds really quickly and is such a fun girl. She loves toys, playing fetch and tug and playing with a football (including bursting them if at all possible). She is good with cats (incl. our timid cat and 3 legged cat). She would quite like another gentle but playful dog for general play and games of tug and chase (she is scared of very boisterous dogs though). She would be happy to live with children too (we believe she has previously lived with 5!) though they would have to be around 8+ because she is bouncy when excited and can be a little bit snappy taking treats. All in all though, Lucky really is a lovely girl with a fantastic temperament. She will make someone a very special, loving and devoted companion and give you plenty of laughs!”
Oh, Georgina from CARE had someone looking for a Lab x last week there is a thread somewhere on it.
____________ Natalie x
LAB LINK RESCUE Co ordinator and Forum Administrator for my sins
Jack, Molly & Maia, watched over by Tara Banana from the Bridge
Lucky is desperate for a new home. Her fosterer will be going back to work full time in New Year and she will need to move to a new fosterer which isnt ideal.
Update from her foster home :
I have enrolled her in an obedience class 3 weeks ago which she is thoroughly enjoying. She has a good level of obedience and has always responded to clicker training but the extra socialisation with the different dogs in her class is great, as she doesn't have my two to fall back on. Her trainer says she is the best behaved of the group so I'm very proud of her. She's loves working on a 1-2-1 work basis whether agility/obedience. She just likes having that job to do and obviously, it does help keep her out of mischief. She is due to take both her Bronze and Silver KC Good Citizen certificates soon so I will update on how she does. I expect her to pass her Bronze and I'm hoping she will pass her Silver too but we'll wait and see. Whether Miss Fidget Pants will do a 2 minute stay on the day is anyone's guess and will depend on what else is going on. That said, she did a great 'stay' the other day. We were practicing doing waits and stays with distractions so we would put the dog in position and have other dogs running very closely past, the aim being that they would not stay in position. When it was her turn she had a couple of adolescent terriers doing a run-by. I half expected her to nip or chase the feisty JR girl but she didn't. Admittedly she didn't stay in the 'down stay' and did stand up. But I told her to lay down again and she did straight away with no attempt to do anything else. Quite an achievement for her.
She is also still enjoying fun agility classes and jumps at full height. Sometimes she jumps quite normally but other times, she does a vertical take-off. Highly amusing to anyone watching! She's great on all of the equipment now but the weaves are still a work in progress. She is also having other people run her at agility class including a 14 year old girl, 16 year old boy and the trainer's husband.
All in all, the best way to describe Lulu is 95% joy, 5% trouble. The 95% obviously far outweighs the 5% but her forever home will need to be experienced and bear the 5% trouble in mind and be committed to working with her. For all her 'issues', she is lovely, affectionate, playful, fun-loving and so cuddly. The reward really is worth the effort with her.
Both Lucky and Toby (in your other post) look absolutely lovely and I can't believe no-one has snapped them up. We have a young baby in the house, otherwise I would be sorely tempted...
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