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Does anyone have a nice dog!!!

7K views 83 replies 62 participants last post by  Sadie53 
#1 ·
Hi, all I read on this forum is about Devil Dog's Hounds from Hell!!! I am really starting to wonder if I did the right thing purchasing a Golden. I am ready to sell him!!! He is pretty good now but, all these problems makes me worry. Good God, all the biting and bad behavior makes you wonder??? What did I get myself into??? So, please does anyone have good stories?? Ugh..... Spent a good buck on my dog and hate to take a loss but, I am nervous. Please some good stories might help!:confused:
 
#55 ·
I think Golden Retrievers are the best dogs of all. I agree with Mooselips. Obedience class. Go faithfully and listen. Why would a nice loose leash walk have anything to do with eating the walls? Admittedly, it doesn't seem make a good connection. But trust me, obedience classes. Go!
 
#56 ·
When we brought Ben home, as a 3 year old totally untrained rescue, we went through a very hard time at first. He jumped and bit and lost control completely. He seemed to turn into demon dog without warning. I was ready to take him back a couple of times, except that I had made a commitment and I intended to keep it if at all possible. We gave him lots of exercise, lots of attention, and lots of training, and 2 years later he is a happy mellow dog who is a joy to live with. We still have occasional stressful moments, but they are rare and I have absolutely no regrets about bringing him home. 99% of the time he is a great dog. Just occasionally he gets super-excited and stops listening, but we can live with that, especially since the problem is largely our laziness in not continuing with the training. Even in the beginning, when he was the most badly behaved, he always made us laugh. And now he frequently makes us proud, as he greets strangers politely and gets hugged and petted by groups of children without misbehaving. He has come so far!

Ben is my first GR, and not at all the way I expected a golden to act, but I wouldn't trade him for anything. And I'm sure that my next dog will also be a golden.
 
#57 ·
I do think a golden can be a tough first dog, and a tough dog to combine with tiny kids as a first dog. It is a tough choice for a couch potato type person, as this is a sporting dog. A cavalier( with great heart clearances) is an easy first dog, or a pug (that can breathe) in my experience.
 
#58 · (Edited)
No, every Golden is not a problem dog. Overall, I think Golden Retrievers are the best. We have had three over the years. Our second one, Chewy, was a bit difficult with housebreaking. However, overall she was a great dog--we had her for over 14 years.

Max has been really easy. He slept on our bed the first night, when he was 11 weeks old. He has had one accident in the house, the first week, and has been perfect ever since.

He did chew some drywall when he was teething, and I had many bite marks on my hands those first few months. But really, even as a puppy, he has been great.

He is calm, friendly and trustworthy with kid, adults, and other dogs. He is smart and even lets himself in and out of the house. He spends some time at an assisted living facility where my wife's mother lives, and is truly amazing with the residents. Only negative I can think of, is he has dug some really big holes in the backyard.

I think an important factor in the behavior of any Golden puppy/dog, is their breeding and early life as a puppy. Our second Golden, Chewy, was from a puppy mill/pet store. I think her background had a lot to do with her issues, such as housebreaking. Max came from a small breeder who raised the pups in the house. This stable beginning helped Max develop his perfect "Golden" temperament. But given a chance, with training and patience, virtually any Golden can become a great family pet.
 
#59 · (Edited)
The Princess is our second chosen dog. And like the first she is a rescue. We adopted her at 18 months. Except for sofa pillow eating, and butt sniff/greet behaviour she has been a great dog. She is only distructive when our health problems interfere with her exercise needs. She has not been the chewee monster that the first rescue was. Ivory chewed EVERYTHING from the time we adopted her at 8 weeks until about 14 months.

Seriously, I would never own anything other than a sporting dog, NSDTR or thereabouts in size. I have had my fill of lap dogs and house dogs and finicky barkee neurotic yappee dogs.

Princess Daisy only barks when she perceives a real threat to my wife. She does not bite or nibble people. She does not pee or poop in the house or the quilt shop, where she works 4 days per week.

Get a Chuck-it and several of the glow in the dark balls and spend time every evening before dinner flinging the ball for fetch. This is great exercise for the both of you. You will be surprised what a difference this makes in your dogs behaviour.

Also, please understand that this forum is usually discovered by people with a Golden Retriever that have a need that requires feedback from other owners. There are 20,800 members here. AKC says that G.R.'s are about 6% of the registered dogs on their database. 2008 numbers are about 65,000 G.R. dogs registered with AKC. I would speculate that actual G.R.'s registered with AKC is about 25% of G.R's owned. So, about 10% of G.R's have had "problems" enough that their owners seek help? Thats a small number, considering. All this to conclude, you have a great dog. Just give him time to grow into a great dog. Exercise, proper training, and patience are the keys.

"Stop that, oh you bad dog, don't chew the rug", is bad behaviour on your part.
"NO!" is good behaviour on your part.

The trainer, if a good one, will help you as much as they will help your dog. Seriously, time and money well spent once you find the right one. Ask for referrels here, and then interview them. Does not necessarly mean a lot of money either.


Max
 
#61 ·
I couldn't agree more. Puppy stage is hard and I'm still in it..with TWO. I know I'm crazy :doh:but honestly id pick watching my pups over babysitting my 4 yr old twin little sisters anyday. Like a lot of people said a tired puppy is a happy puppy - do as much as you can to exercise their body and brain! There may be a lot of horror stories but if you go over to the rainbow bridge you can see the amazing impact these dogs have on our lives, they really become apart of you. The joy and bliss and indescribable feeling a golden bond brings you is the best gift out there in this world :)
 
#62 ·
I am completely surprised to hear you feel most posts are about problem Goldens (what forums do you usually pick to read from?)
Did you ever have any human children? A Golden is a piece of cake by comparison!
Ignuah
I dont know what your kids were like but, mine never chewed on the walls or furniture. LOL
Well, I showed and trained horses for 33 years. I understand the need for training and exercise. Like horses, I feel a dog with a job is a happy dog. My dog is really a good boy. He is smart and friendly. In one week he learned to go potty outside. He can sit, laydown and stay. Walking on a leash is still a challange. I purchased him from a great breeder. His parents came from Champion Blood lines. He was bread for his temperment. He is by far the best dog I ever owned. I only read this forum. If you read the thread Puppies up to one year1 You will see story after story of miss behaved dogs. The are attacking their owners and biting them. I never saw any good stories about the dogs. I was also told in a previous post that no one wants to read the good stories!
 
#65 ·
I dont know what your kids were like but, mine never chewed on the walls or furniture. LOL
Well, I showed and trained horses for 33 years. I understand the need for training and exercise. Like horses, I feel a dog with a job is a happy dog. My dog is really a good boy. He is smart and friendly. In one week he learned to go potty outside. He can sit, laydown and stay. Walking on a leash is still a challange. I purchased him from a great breeder. His parents came from Champion Blood lines. He was bread for his temperment. He is by far the best dog I ever owned. I only read this forum. If you read the thread Puppies up to one year1 You will see story after story of miss behaved dogs. The are attacking their owners and biting them. I never saw any good stories about the dogs. I was also told in a previous post that no one wants to read the good stories!

No kidding! I got tired of people telling me that it was like having another infant. No, no, no ... infants are 100X easier than a nippy, whizzy puppy. Babies move slowly, wear nappies and are easy to read.

Puppies are terrible people :):) I never fancied myself an infant person until I had Wrigley.

We boarded Wrigley with our trainer last weekend and he gave me such a great compliment when he told me that Wrigley is the best dog and he thanked me for putting in the time. He saw me at my very worst. Hang in there!
 
#68 ·
Merlin is pretty much the perfect dog!! I couldn't ask for a better behaved boy. :) His only fault, and it's really my fault not his, is that he will pull on leash in new places.

He had the usual craziness as a puppy and we had some frustrating times but he grew out of it. Merlin only chewed up one thing as a pup and that was a shoe....and my hubby's fault for not watching him. Not sure what I did to deserve such a good boy but I love him with all my heart. Can't believe he's 5-1/2 years old already!
 
#70 ·
Can I say wonderful things about my pup, too? Yesterday I posted in Training about walking him on his flat collar. He was just perfect.

Also last night, he had a playdate with a 9-week-old husky pup. Turns out Casper is a great older dog. You know, all the books that say find an older dog to play with your puppy. One that is tolerant and gives gentle feedback. Casper is that dog!

Sure, he still gets the zoomies, he likes to jump, and he's mouthy guy (to say the least), but he's completely housebroken, never barks, doesn't chew up our stuff, and knows lots of tricks. He asks to get on the couch if I am on the couch. He sits for his dinner. He sleeps all night.

He loves people. At the first session of our current dog class, we were practicing polite greetings. That would be a full-body experience for Casper. :) The trainer said to me, "Oh, he's a therapy dog!" I said, "Yea, maybe when he's nine!"
 
#71 ·
I have felt the same thing. We have a 6 month old golden and there are days that I think there is no way I can keep him. Sometimes his behavior worries me but then he will have few days where he is so good, so I see the potential :) I will be taking him to obedience classes starting soon.
 
#72 ·
You know, I think a big part of the "bad puppy" thing comes down to expectations. We all see the commercials with the Golden puppies lying there so calmly and looking so cute. We all see the pictures posted on facebook and elsewhere of the big gentle Golden lying beside a baby. We see the movies with the super wonderful and gentle Goldens. We hear that Golden Retrievers are perfect family dogs, and wonderful with children and awesome therapy dogs.

And all of that is true. But they don't come out of the box that way! I think people expect to have a calm, well behaved puppy, from day one, and when that doesn't happen, they don't know what to do. So many post here that they think their puppy is aggressive, that the puppy knocks down the kids, or bites the kids, or jumps on people. Well, yeah! That's what most puppies do and will continue to do unless they're trained, and I don't care if they came from a pet store or the most awesome breeder who ever walked the earth, they still need to be trained to not act like wild animals. For in the end, they are animals.


I shall now step off my soapbox and go bake cookies. :)
 
#76 ·
"If only I knew then what I know now!" These are the very thoughts I was telling myself today while at work. I was taking care of a patient and turned the channel on the tv to Animal Planet. They had Puppies 101 or something. Anyway it was about puppies. They got to the part of chewing and mouthing..., and they had the new puppy owners put butter on their hands, so that the puppy would only lick their hands! It was a beautiful thing to see, as I remember all the biting and bleeding I went through with Maggie, along with the frustration and my DH thinking she had some sort of screw loose.
 
#77 ·
I have to share this with other golden owners. We adopted two goldens a little over 6 weeks ago. The female had been in a shelter for 11 months and was too ill to be saved. She was very sick and uncontrollable. The shelter people took her back to see if they could do anything. I'm assuming they couldn't because they have never contacted us again.

The male Henry, is a doll, he is the sweetest dog I've ever seen. He has begun to bring us little gifts from the garden on his three times a day rounds. Today he found a perfect mandarin orange and brought it to us. Everything we request of him he learns quickly, but the bringing of gifts is so unusual I just thought I'd share it since I couldn't find any mention on the search function.

He is also a good guard dog which is also unusual for the breed. He has his self appointed rounds and will not return to the house until he has completed them to his own satisfaction. He also barks and growls if he suspects anyone unknown is in the area. I accidentally hit a thermometer which has a voice message. He was very alarmed at the strange voice and his hackles went up immediately.

So yes he is a very sweet and nice dog.
 
#79 ·
My 'Hell Hound' is busy terrorising a bone right now. Later on, he will intimidate most people he sees into smiling at him when we go out for a walk.

He will then walk to school with me to pick up the kids - and bully the children into stroking him.

He will then viciously bite his food before going back out to intimidate more unfortunate people into smiling and wanting to stroke him. I will then be scared into playing ball with him before he settles down for the evening where he'll viciously sleep on the floor and occasionally come up to me or the wife and scare us into cuddling him. He will then horrify his bed all night.

And then it'll start all over again tomorrow!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com Free App
 
#81 ·
Hi there. My golden is the best dog I have ever had. She is full of beans but after a good bit of exercise she is very relaxed. She is excelling in obedience. She has finished beginner and is registered for intermediate. Do not get discouraged with the breed. Sadie is now 17months old and wonderful. It is up to me to exercise her as she is so full of happy energy.
 
#82 · (Edited)
Because people start threads in order to get help a fairly large proportion of the time, you're getting a skewed view.

My dogs are extraordinary companions. We hike, sleep, train, travel, and snuggle the 14 hours a day I'm not at work and all day on vacations and weekends. They're amazing with kids, rock-solid on recall, gentlemen in the house, and mannerly towards strangers. We have a blast at class and on the trail, and we relax together in the house.

All my Goldens have always been like that, and I've helped many people fix their issues with their Goldens or train puppies up to be wonderful companions.

You have to put in time, attention, exercise, and consistency in order to maximize your dog's opportunity to be an ideal companion but it's very doable. Group classes at a great training center can really help.

ETA: If you want to see happy, well-trained Goldens enjoying life and giving me literally years of happiness and even the occasional bit of reflective wisdom, you can check out my blog.
 
#84 ·
Hi there. Today will be a throwing Sadie's pink tennis ball down our long driveway many times in a row. We have so much snow that she cannot get a full open fetch in the yard so to the driveway we go! She is sleeping curled up in a ball at the other end of the couch after a play with our other dog Reba who is a rough collie/husky. Have a great golden day everyone!
 
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