Adopted

Gracie ... Special Needs ...WOW!! Move over, Marilyn Monroe, and make room for a genuine Blonde Bombshell! Gracie is a gorgeous natural platinum blonde with long eyelashes, luxuriant curls, and a coal-black nose (OK, maybe Marilyn wouldn’t have envied THAT feature)—in short, she just can’t take a bad picture. And her personality is every bit as lovely as her looks. She’s about four or five years old, and came to GRR from owners who were planning on lots of travel and didn’t feel they could take their Golden on repeated road trips.

Gracie is wonderful! She is calm in the house, easy-going, and great with kids. She did fine with the two cats in her original home, and she’s good friends with the four other dogs in her foster home. (She was a bit nervous of the “herd” at first, but now that she’s settled in, she’s companionable with everyone and even starting to initiate play!) Gracie enjoys chew bones and Nylabones—and only rarely decides to sample a household item like a tasty sandal. She loves plushies, too, but does have a tendency to “redesign” them by nipping off noses and eyes.

Gracie loves to be petted and loves affection. Her idea of bliss is to be the center of attention! She’s a homebody at heart and not particularly interested in going out and about; walks are fine, and so are car rides (though you may need to lift her in), but at someone else’s house or at the vet’s, she’s nervous and may pant anxiously and conceal herself behind Mom or Dad. Still, we are making some progress—the other day she hopped into the car under her own steam! So with gradual, careful, cheerful exposure to different fun places, she may actually get to enjoy an outing. But she’ll always be a dog who likes to hang out in the security of her own home and yard. She loves to keep her owners company, whatever they are doing. Relaxing out back in the grass or on the patio and keeping an eye on birds and squirrels is another favorite pastime—and like a true Sunbathing Beauty, she also enjoys lounging poolside, but is not particularly interested in actually diving in and wetting her glamour-girl coiffure.

At this point, you may well be thinking: “Why is this girl ‘special needs’? She sounds almost perfect!” And she is! But here’s the situation: like humans, canines can suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, and Gracie is a dog who has this condition. Overall, she’s completely healthy, but she has a chronic, long-term problem with intermittent diarrhea, and it will always require management. When she has a flare-up, she’ll have very loose bowel movements and urgency, and she’ll need to go out often during the day. We keep her crated at night—not because she might get into mischief otherwise, but because she’ll sound the alarm by pawing at her crate should she need to go out “this very minute.” Inflammatory bowel is usually managed with diet, and right now, we’re having excellent success using a prescription dry food that’s specially formulated to agree with a sensitive GI tract. The food is expensive—about $80 for a 35-pound bag (enough to last Gracie for about 6 weeks)—but well worth the cost for the improvement we’ve seen in just a month or so. It’s important to watch Miss Gracie’s snacks, too; we keep treats down to a bare minimum, giving her just the occasional tiny piece, and this hasn’t been causing her any problems.

So, what does Gracie need? Like any other Golden, she’d love to move in with a family who will lavish her with affection, take her for the walks she enjoys, welcome her participation in everything they do around the house—and, of course, accept all the neighbors’ compliments on her dazzling good looks! But she also needs someone who can be around quite a bit during the day for her and who can easily afford her special food. Really, she’s in the pink of health—but she can’t switch to regular (even premium) dog food without getting into tummy trouble.



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