Adopting a Golden Retriever - Is it right for you?

Name

Shadow

Breed

Golden Retriever

Age

2 years old

Weight

80 lbs.

Health

Excellent

Available for adoption!

Are you ready to adopt Shadow? First, you should acquaint yourself with the Golden Retriever by reading about the breed and interacting with several of them. Talk to people who've had a Golden for a long time. As a starting point, we have provided a list of resources for Golden Retrievers in this website.

What to expect with this Golden Retriever

Adopting Shadow will be a lifetime commitment so be prepared. Golden Retrievers are a lovable breed, gentle by nature, easy to train and eager to please — Shadow is no different. He is also big, very strong, energetic, has a long beautiful fur coat and prefers to have his own way quite a bit of the time.

Shadow can be very social with large groups (such as at the Dog Park), but has exhibited some aggressive tendacies in one-on-one encounters with other dogs during his runs on the bike path. Shadow has also shown aggressiveness towards the Wade's family cat — prospective adoptive families should probably not have a cat around.

Shadow loves 2-3 mile bike rides on sunny days. Come to think of it, any day really. He would make a nice jogging partner too! He just likes to go, go go!

While Golden Retrievers do not like being alone for long periods of time, Shadow seems to have adapted to the Wade's work/sleep schedule. He is cage trained and has handled it well.

As with all Golden Retrievers, they will incur costs for vet bills, training classes, quality food, fencing in some instances, not to mention toys, leashes, brushes, etc.

The Adoption Process

If you've decided a Golden Retriever is right for your family, please consider the following about rescued goldens:

1. AGaG rescues any and all needy goldens (except aggressive dogs) without bias to age, gender, size, color, personality, medical needs or other history and, therefore, the profiles of our available goldens can greatly vary at any given time.
2. A typical rescued golden may have one or more issues and adoptive families need to be open to accepting a dog that is less than perfect.
3. Due to safety, liability, and availability concerns, AGaG does not adopt to families with children under 6 years of age residing full-time, or part-time in their home.

Since Shadow is a healthy Golden Retriever, the first two items of the AGaG Policy do not apply. The third item however, small children, does apply. For more information on AGaG's Adoption Policy and other programs, visit the As Good as Gold website.