Tara

Tara is 8 years old, neutered, vaccinated and now microchipped. She is quite a small Golden Retriever with very short stocky legs. She arrived in the UK with her half sister Finn and was then fostered by Jane and her family in Kidderminster.

Jane said. “Tara is clean in the house and we don’t hear a peep out of her all night. There are no problems with other dogs and she is fine with our Tess & Harvey and she doesn’t bat an eyelid at the cats or the rest of our menagerie.

Tara is not very good on the lead and pulls like a steam train so we are walking her with a harness at the moment and shy’s away from the traffic when walked down the lane.

She is such a timid little girl, will need loads of reassurance but is slowly coming out of her shell.

UPDATE 28/12/10

We have now had Tara just over 2 weeks and she has settled in well. She has grown in confidence but still very wary of strangers but as soon as she realises that they will do her no harm is fine.

She is not too impressed with the car and does get quite stressed but we are working on that one. She loves to go out for a walk but is not great on a lead, but is improving with a harness.

Tara is a real fuss pot and love attention and lots of cuddles. She has such a sweet nature and I think she would be great with other dogs and cats or fine on her own as she is such a people dog and loves to be the centre of attention!!

TARA GOES TO HER FOREVER HOME

Tara went off to her new life in Cornwall on 5 Feb with Samantha. It was so sad to see her go. Enjoy your new life Tara xxx

TARA IN HER NEW HOME

Sam said. “My partner Jay and I lost our goldie Poppy to cancer in February 2010 and were heartbroken, we still had our chocolate labrador Oscar though and that helped us. Then this February we decided that we were finally ready to open our hearts and our home to a new dog for us and a new companion for Oscar. We toyed with the idea of buying a puppy but Oscar is 10 and so wouldn’t take kindly to a puppy jumping all over him and we wanted to offer a home to a dog who needed one.

After losing Poppy we were reluctant to take on an older dog as we didn’t want to go through the heartache again so soon but when we heard about Tara, an 8 year old goldie, we thought – well hopefully we can give each other at least 4 happy years and she’ll be a good friend for Oscar.

Tara had been with her foster carers, Jane & Malcolm, for a couple of months by then because of the Christmas break and so they’d become rather fond of her. Because Jane and Tara lived in the Midlands and we live in Cornwall we had to wait for 4 weeks before we were able to drive up to collect her…which meant lots of moments where Oscar stared at me blankly whilst I told him in a high pitched tone about his ‘new friend’.

Jane had informed me that Tara was a real fusspot and not great in the car so she predicted that on the journey home Tara would be on my lap, her prediction was correct…when we tried to put her into the boot of the landrover she jumped into the back & then tried to climb into the front with us so I compromised and sat in the back with her where, for the next 5 hours, she laid across my lap.

Oscar was quite welcoming and Tara followed me around the house like a shadow, even following me upstairs – which is something that she hadn’t done at Jane & Malcolm’s house. They became closer over the week and she attached herself to him completely – smelling every blade of grass that he had, zig-zagging across the path like he does and even, bizarrely…trying to cock her leg like he does!

Unfortunately after a couple of days she developed Kennel Cough, possibly due to the stress caused by the move but after 2 weeks of anti-biotics it has almost gone.

She gets on with all of the other animals – 3 cats, 4 rabbits, 1 chinchilla & a parrot – although she did spend her first couple of evenings here staring at the parrot in awe as he said hello to her and told her she was a good boy!

Tara is a lovely, lovely girl. She does love fuss but she’s also content to lie in front of the woodburner. She’s a complete explorer – we’ve turned a corner on a country path a couple of times now to find her halfway up a separate path or perched on the top on a wall like a mountain goat. She’s also managed to find a way from our garden into next doors garden – something that neither Poppy nor Oscar has ever done.

She’s introduced herself to most of the village and everyone is impressed by how sweet she is. I’d like to thank Jane & Malcolm – whilst Tara is great with recall she is still learning on the lead but Jane & Malcolm have definitely helped with this – they’ve also built her confidence and she is certainly a very happy little girl. The Irish Retriever Rescue really stood out to us as a charity committed to doing the very best for the dogs in their care and holding this above all else.”