Kona ~5-Year-Old Female Chocolate Lab ~62 lbs, Spayed
Background: Kona's family has made a difficult decision to rehome her. With a 16-month old child, another on the way, a full-time work schedule, and 3 walks a day, Kona still isn't receiving the attention she deserves, and they want the best for her. Kona was adopted through another rescue when she was about a year-old and reportedly went through four homes within the first year of her life as she was supposedly a lot to handle. You wouldn't know that now, as Kona's family has done a lot of training and work with her. Kona can be leash reactive (pulling on leash) mostly within close proximity of her home and in outside restaurants where dogs are present. Once she walks beyond the house, about a block away, she walks easily.
What Kona's Family Says: Kona is a love bug. She came to us with a lot of issues and some issues may still be underlying but are hard for us to assess anymore because we are not near some of her stressors (one such example is her reactivity to skateboarders, scooter riders, etc). We worked hard to train Kona and give her a wonderful life but we have reached a point in our lives that it is difficult to give her the attention that she used to get and she has started to act up in ways that she did not when she got more attention: counter surfing, stealing and destroying items.
Generally speaking Kona is a high energy dog. We often get asked if she's still a puppy, but the truth is she's only still a puppy in her head. She currently gets about 1.5 hours of exercise daily and we think that is not enough for her. She would love a place where she can go play ball; she could fetch forever but as she has gotten older she really lasts for about 15-20 min of hard fetching before tiring out and playing her second favorite game: keep away. Kona loves the beach and swimming and would love the opportunity to get back to both of these things. She used to be a Fort Funston regular before we moved away from the city.
Kona is not much of a dog daycare kind of girl or a dog park girl. She is friendly with other dogs but we see that when she gets tired she really doesn't like other dogs to be in her space. We do send her to daycare when the cleaners are in our home so she will tolerate it, but she begins to take nervous behaviors like licking herself and gives herself hot spots and other issues when left at these kinds of places too long. We try to keep her there minimally.
We have spent a lot of time training Kona. She knows basic commands: sit, stay, leave it, wait, heel, paw, shake, ta-da, peekaboo, touch, watch me, and speak. Her recall is stellar and she could be called away from most things at the park including a dead pelican at Funston!! She could use a refresher on the commands but when GGLRR came by she was more than happy to show off her skills. She is crate trained ("crate") and would probably prefer her crate if we had space for it. She is house trained.
Kona is leash reactive. While we have trained her away from most of the behavior she remains reactive right around the house and if she sees a cat anywhere and she's on leash. She's actually so leash reactive at cafes away from the house she is not a dog you could currently take to a restaurant to eat with other dogs. She would just try to bark at all the other dogs and maybe even pull your table over. She also humps people. She tends to do this to whoever she perceives to be the non-alpha owner. We have been told it's a sign of dominance. She's even humped the vet who suggested some training for it...
Kona does have some medical problems. She has USMI, a form of incontinence seen in spayed dogs, and she's on Proin for it. She's on the lowest dose and tolerates this well. She has also hurt her spine before and when we visited the vet they did tell us this could happen again in the future as dogs that get it once often get it again. She did well with pain management and is currently pain free and medication free for that. Prophylactically we also give her MSM for her joints and omega-3s for her skin and coat. She does have a chipped tooth (which I can't see) that will need to be addressed eventually. It does not seem to bother her.
Kona has no resource guarding issues and is incredible with our toddler, but we really would love to see Kona go to a home where she could be the star. Kona just wants to be loved and we want to see her be loved as much as she was before we lost the bandwidth to love her with that time. She would love ball, swimming, beach, and hikes. She deserves more than she is able to get here.
What Kona's Rescue Rep Says: It is clear Kona has been very well taken care of and loved the four years she's been with her family. She was reported to be quite leash reactive when they first got her. They invested in a lot of training, and it shows. Walking with Kona and her mom, Kona walks well on a harness and checks in with her mom regularly. She is treat motivated. We took about a 20 minute walk through the quiet residential neighborhood and down to the local dog park where we passed a mail carrier, a few strollers, and other dogs without any issue. We didn't go inside the dog park, but stood outside of it, where Kona sniffed a few other exiting dogs nicely and with a wagging tail. Her mom says she especially likes other Labs. On the way home, we stopped in front of the house and were talking. One couple walked up from the street, in between two cars, and onto the sidewalk behind us; in this instance, I did see Kona's reactivity which was pulling on the leash and barking at the couple; I think they startled her. She was also pulling on leash when she heard a dog's collar jingling. Again, that was as we got close to her house. When I first met Kona, she was barking at me through the front glass door. She ran out, jumped up and humped me, but quickly responded to the mom's redirection. She's friendly and overall, walked nicely on leash (outside of some reactivity when we were close to her home).
We'd like Kona to go to a family where she would receive daily walks (not just backyard exercise), an enclosed backyard where she could run and play, a home where she won't be left for long stretches of the day. She loves to swim and loves to play fetch. No cats, as Kona has a strong prey drive.
Medical: Kona takes a daily medication, Proin, for incontinence. She is spayed, up-to-date on vaccinations and has been heartworm tested. She is on a monthly flea, tick, and heartworm preventative. She is fed Honest Kitchen takes an Omega-3 supplement and Dasuquin for good joint health.
Located in: San Carlos.
If you are interested in adopting Kona, please contact Rescue Rep Kris at krisellen.nm@gmail.com. In your email please tell me how you meet the requirements for Kona, what a typical day would be like for her in your home, as well as your experience with large dogs.
Please note our service area: GGLRR adopts to the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
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