Ohhhhh where do I start... The last several months have been very busy for Dexter and myself. Dexter completed his advanced obedience class just before Christmas. And he did awesome, of course. We took 2 months off and began a Rally Obedience class with our trainer to prepare for a competition at the end of April. Rally class friends 🐾🐕 This was not what I had in mind when I began speaking to you over 3 years ago about acquiring a companion dog. He enjoyed our obedience classes so much that I couldn't stop at just one. So.... we took a series of four, yes four classes to find ourselves at our first Rally-O competition on April 29th in Marshalltown. He competed like a champ! Taking 3rd place (out of 10) on Saturday in Rally Novice A and 2nd place (out of 9) on Sunday in Rally Novice A. It was so much fun to see him work in front of all new people and dogs. I was a ball of nerves, but he acted like a pro. All business pre-show. I had to include this serious mug shot.
I couldn't have been more proud. I was so excited at his ability and performance, I couldn't wait to see what what next for us. So, I set another goal for us. We are competing in the Rally competition in DSM this September! Yay! He loves to work, and I mean HE LOVES TO WORK. He shakes his chest at me waiting for the next command. Tail just-a-wagging furiously back and forth. This time I think we are going to explore the obedience ring too. Eeekkk! All the pressure is on him. And he takes it like a pro. We need just one more leg to complete his Rally Novice A title. And we will shoot for 2 legs of Obedience Novice A in September too.
So in the mean time, we are just having fun exploring the world together. Picking out brackets together. Every dog needs one. Hanging out at the farmers market in downtown Des Moines. Here we have been stopped so many times to be asked "Where did you get that dog" Come to find out, everyone here knows about you and Rhonda. We even met another Snitker Golden at the farmers market. She was just as beautiful as Dex. Walking along beautiful downtown Des Moines. We have been socializing quite a bit. Getting him around as many different types of stimulus as we can because we are practicing for our Therapy Dog International Testing in June to become what else.... a THERAPY DOG! He brings so much life and happiness to me that I need to share him. As I stated previously, I only wanted a "companion dog". The gift I received was much, much more. I have never shown a dog or had a therapy dog. I have to challenge him to his fullest potential, and I feel we are just scratching the surface. He is still very young at 16 months but he has so much to offer. He is quite simply, just amazing. I hope you enjoy the pics! And yes, once we have our certificate, we will be proudly joining Snitker Therapy Club. Until next time... April & Dexter May 2017
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 I have attached a couple of pictures of Teagan (Miss Green) at 7 months old. I think she looks just like her mom. Everyone she meets thinks she is beautiful and love her champagne color. I personally think she is the cutest crème golden I have ever seen. As you can see, she is the same height as her 9 year old sister already! She is currently taking nose work classes and has a really good nose for the scents. Hope to compete with her someday because she really loves doing this. Thanks again for the most wonderful, smart, and beautiful puppy. I do hope to someday get another one of your puppies. Your puppies are all beautiful. Barb   Here he is doing therapy with a client who is a veteran. Don't they both look very relaxed?□ Hi Rhonda and Stephanie! I thought I would send you an update about our Veterans Moving Forward Vincent who is in the final stages of his Service Dog training. He is scheduled to begin training with his veteran in the middle of March. We are using these final weeks to sharpen his Service Dog skills and teach him some specific skills his veteran needs. Vincent's veteran is a chaplain who works in hospice. In addition to needing a Service Dog for himself, his veteran would like Vincent to be a Therapy Dog for the hospice patients. There are differences between a Service Dog and a Therapy Dog. One significant difference is a Service Dog is expected to focus on his person, ignoring other people, whereas a Therapy Dog needs to be very social with strangers. We feel Vincent can do both jobs, so we have been working with him switching between the two jobs. He has been doing therapy work in an office with a LCSW.
Vincent will be flying home to Texas with his veteran. To prepare him for the trip we have been visiting the airport. He has had the chance to see what an airport looks like, go through security and even board a plane. We found out happy Vincent can set off the metal detector alarm with his wagging tail! Here is Vincent peeking out from his seat in an airplane. A representative from Veterans Moving Forward visits the home before the veteran gets a Service Dog. It is important to see the living situation to better prepare the dog for life with the veteran. In anticipation of his move, Vincent has begun living with a cat and is getting extra exposure to children. We learned Vincent will be sitting on the backseat of the car when he commutes to work with his veteran. We researched how to do this safely and discovered the Center for Pet Safety recommends only one company's car harness based on an independent crash test study. (This research was very eye opening!) The recommended company, Sleepypod, graciously donated a harness for us to try with Vincent. I have been working with Vincent to get him used to being tethered with a seatbelt and learning how best to have a dog ride on the seat. I ended up finding a hammock style seat cover works great for Vincent when he is in the harness and keeps my seat clean. Here he is riding in style! It seems like yesterday that I picked up 8 week old Vincent from the farm. Now he's all grown up and almost ready to do the work he's been training so hard to do. Thank you for donating this fabulous dog to Veterans Moving Forward! He is a very special boy! All the best to you! Donna and (almost!) Service Dog Vincent 🐾❤🐾🇺🇸   Good Morning Stephanie and Ronda, I wanted to give you an update on Hawkeye. He is doing EXCELLENT. We sure do love him a lot. We go out for socialization and rides on a daily basis. He loves going to the Nursing home. We start puppy classes on November 11th. He is also fully housebroken and goes to the door and “rings a bell” when he needs to go out and also “sits” by the door. He has learned, sit, and come very well. We are working on “down” and “stay”. Everyone that meets him absolutely loves him. His last vet check was a few days ago and he received another puppy shot series. One more set to go of those. Our vet also started him on heart worm monthly. He now weighs 22 pounds, 😊 and is eating 3 cups of food a day. I ordered more food and another bottle of the deodorizer spray. That isn’t for Hawkeye, I didn’t want you to get alarmed if you saw the order, one of my friends got a new 7 week old puppy and we are giving it to her with a puppy toy as a gift. We are so glad that God brought all of you and Hawkeye into our life, he is already the star of the family at our house and in the neighborhood. The neighborhood kids come down to play with him in the back yard several times a week. It wears all of them out.
Richard thought I should tell you guys, Hawkeye has been totally potty trained for several weeks. He ONLY had a total of 3 accidents in the house. (1 the first night he came home, and 2 other ones in the 1st week; however both of those were our fault as he was at the door!). Of course, I am home and so I work with him a lot, take him out after he plays, as soon as he gets up from sleeping, right after eating, etc. He also goes with us everywhere, we take car rides of at least 40 minutes every day, going to the drive through at the bank, in the car wash, post office, nursing home, beauty shop, etc. Pretty much everywhere I go, he goes, if he can! Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you need me to write anything about you guys or you can use any of the information I have shared with you on your website. We recommend and praise you guys to EVERYONE. People can really tell the difference between our pup and others and they love him. Our vet at Kindness Pet clinic in Indianola is already singing Hawkeyes praises. He is so well behaved every time we go, they want to keep him. I told them no way! 😊 Have a good weekend. Warmest regards, Lynne
The boys are doing great. They are totally in love with each other! Training Remi went really smoothly as Rudi helped and showed him the ropes from day one.
 Ruby Hi Rhonda and Stephanie! I just wanted to send you a quick update on Ruby (Ina & Silas) and Cooper (Nadia & Silas). Ruby just turned 1, which is hard to believe, and Cooper is now almost 3 ½. Ruby is sweet, sassy, and incredibly smart. She thinks she is the boss, and Cooper lets her believe it :). Cooper is our gentle giant with sweet old soul. They absolutely love people and other animals, and we are always receiving compliments on their temperament and beauty. They truly are ideal. Thank you for everything & Happy New Year! The Ralphes  Cooper Stephanie and Rhonda, Tomorrow is Dexter's 1st birthday. I want to share with you some photos taken over the last year and give you an update on his growth and progress. He was just 14 pounds when you trusted me with him, he now weighs in at 85 pounds. You could say he's pretty healthy. My husband has nicknamed him Tanker. He is a soft and gentle big lug who loves to cuddle at night and is by my side where ever I am, either inside or out. If I am cooking, he's in the kitchen. If I am sewing, he's laying at my feet. If I am cleaning or doing laundry, he's always in the same room keeping a close eye on me. If I am gardening, he will follow me around the yard and to the shed. I can not express in words the amount of joy he brings to our house. He is the most gentle, loving, caring, patient, playful, understanding, easy to get along with, and most kind canine friend a girl could ask for. He adapts easily to all situations. He frequently enjoys car rides to town for shopping and enjoys when I take him into to Lowe's and Bass Pro Shop. Our trainer Anna (who is amazing) informed us of stores in our area to allow dogs to shop too! The customers oh and awe over his beauty and many comment on how well behaved he is. He enjoys going up and down the aisle, staying close by my side. We have completed 2 levels of obedience classes and will begin a rally class in February. We actually even ran into Joy [Elise/Marsi], another Snitker Golden from Iowa at obedience class. Joy is training to be a therapy dog. They sure looked beautiful together. And Joy is an absolute sweet heart. All in all, Dexter is doing amazing. He can't wait for spring, long hikes and dips in the lake are calling our name. And our training is much easier practiced outside. Until then, I guess we will snuggle inside under the warmth of a fire and continue to watch our favorite TV shows together. You truly have given me the gift of a wonderful and amazing canine friend. April Kriegel  Rhonda & Stephanie, Check out our Nellie! We can't tell you enough how proud we are to have a Snitker Golden as our love bug. She is everything we hoped for in a family member, and more. Nellie is truly a joy. She's 14 weeks, and such growth and development we've watched. The 8 hour ride home to Kansas City was a breeze. She was so comfortable and trusting, right from the start. No real separation anxiety has ever existed; she knew she was home with us from the start! She's doing great on her potty training, and she's incredibly smart...Nellie rings the potty bell almost every time, and it's been a week since she had an accident! When we walk her, she has literally stopped traffic. We've gotten to know a ton more of our neighbors as a result of her, as everyone wants to stop and adore her. Nellie has done awesome with the mouthing, and she loves kids. The only real challenges we've had with her stem from her identified high prey drive...she loves to chase things, and she wants to be the boss on the leash around our house. Thank you again for the amazing imprinting process and investment in creating a wonder dog. She came to us perfect, and we are fully committed to keeping her as close to perfect as possible! Much love and respect, Leatha and Michael Cline
 Mila, on Halloween, dressed as a Beanie Baby! These past 7 weeks have gone by so fast! Mila is growing every day! She has been adjusting well, and so are we! We are teaching her all the rules of the house, and she is picking up great! Mila learned the command “sit” in the first week of being home! We are sure this is from the foundation you all gave her, before she came to us. She sits patiently before she is served food as well. We have been getting her exposed to as many new things as possible. She is really becoming independent and likes to explore. Potty training has been easy on all of us. She caught on very fast. She waits by the door when she needs to go out. We joke she goes on command because as soon as we bring her outside, and she hears the word “potty”, she goes! The whole neighborhood is also in love with her. Everyone always stops to see her. They say she is “the talk of the neighborhood”. Last week we had Begger’s Night. We don’t have little kids, so it was the first time we had seen Mila interact with them for a long period of time. She did AWESOME! Kids came back to see her because they thought she was so fun. Parents said she was ‘so cute and soft’ and asked to take pictures with her. And at the end of the night, Mila sat at the door and cried because she wanted all her new friends to come back! She had a great time. Our Vet says she sits nicely and waits to be pet, unlike most puppies! And is growing excellently! She will be starting puppy class next week; we can’t wait to see what new tricks and commands she will learn! Our family posts updates on Mila’s very own Instagram, @the_golden_mila_. We update it once a day, and she is starting to gain a following! The Day Family
 Opie at 12.5 weeks Hello to our Snitker Friends! Where did these past four weeks go? Our “Opie” is 12wk + 3 days today (ok, I sound like a new mom, huh? ) It’s hard to remember days now without our little Opie. However, he isn’t so small – he went from the puppy scale to the “big boy” scale and weighed in at 22.6# thee days ago. It’s probably safe to say he’s 23 # PLUS now. What do 2 boys + 1 large pile of leaves = ? One very tired puppy! Our little guy still does not bark nor does he lick. He is in fact quite laid back…just as his testing indicated the week before we picked him up. He’s perfect – perfect for us. He’s still learning household etiquette and I expect we’ll need a little more time. He has learned that Mom or Dad enter the doorway first –noooo pushing and noooo pulling. Opie has learned important things like where his dad’s snack drawer is in the living room……aka where the peanuts are! Opie can hear that drawer open from another room. Today was a day of “firsts”: rode in a car not a truck hence he could see outside; walked along the Mississippi River and climbed on the rocks; watched the noisy seagulls; walked through Riverside Park in La Crosse and greeted everybody with a proper SIT; saw other dogs running and barking (and did not pull or bark … yippie); inquisitively watched pigeons; treated to a handful of ground turkey; and lastly a real bath. I wouldn’t say that he disliked it, no squirming or thrashing, but more questioning “what ARE you doing to me? He loves the follow-up brushing and massage. Training works best INside right now – those dancing leaves are so distracting! As we learn our manners and their meaning, we are trying to introduce ASL (American Sign Language). Opie understands the most important to him: ‘sit’ and ‘eat.’ Our walks are getting longer and more controlled. Opie can heel, but needs gentle reminders. Actually, he does better than our 8.5 yr Shih Tzu. These two have fun together and well…get into their own predicaments. At least there is companionship when discipline is doled out:
In closing, we have gone from 8 wk to 12.5 wk all too fast. Thank you Rhonda and Stephanie for ALL the work you put forth in these wonderful dogs. We could never have made a better choice for ourselves. - Opie's Forever Family |
Why Snitker Goldens
We begin with quality tested and approved breeding Golden Retrievers and build on that solid foundation with our puppies. Championship pedigrees in their lines are our way of remaining true to breed standard. We strive to personally imprint each pup with positive, rewarding experiences – to nurture each one with love and care, realizing that each day we have your puppy is one day closer to the day you will hold him or her. We use this time to make that permanent impression on your pup, one which he or she will carry for a lifetime.
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