Hi all,

This is my first post - my partner (bastetsmum) is often trawling the Cat of the Day forums but since I've always owned dogs I thought I'd check here since I have a small problem...

I've taken on a pure bred Golden Retriever as a rescue (her family divorced and it seems no one wanted to take her)...she was going to be put down but luckily they called the local association who had my number. I've recently had to put my oldest and closest four legged canine friend down so I had room for another dog..

Anyway her name is Goldie and she seems really depressed most of the time and very timid. She hides out in the back yard and won't come to me (most of the time) when called. She starts to bark if I leave her outside and I get the feeling she wants to interact and is trying to get my attention. The problem is I don't want to be too hard on her because she has only been at my place for 5 days and she is 9 years old. She has a rope like lead - she seems to respond to that. Whenever I hook that up to her collar she gets up and walks to the back door or wherever I lead her straight away.

I was thinking of getting a longer rope - letting her run away while I've still got the rope held in my hand and then, when calling her, tugging on the rope gently to see if she comes to me, rewarding her if she does. Does this sound like a good strategy? I'm trying not to coo her too much but she seems out of sorts and I'm wondering how long it will take her to adjust? I have one other dog who isn't giving her too much of a hard time but I think Goldie has always been a 1 dog family so maybe that is something else I have to consider.

Hope to get to know everyone and their favourite pet over the next few months.

Kind regards,


Karamon.