A Golden Reputation

My girl, living up to the Goldie reputation for being gentle with children ...

It has been a real privilege to allow my precious Grandson his first opportunity to begin to learn about dogs.

Polly has been an absolute gem with our special little boy, sitting patiently to allow him to gently touch her fur and doing exactly as instructed whenever he is close to her.

It is clear that even at this tender age, my Grandson is learning how to be confident and respectful, thanks to his budding relationship with Polly.

Polly likes nothing better than to have my adult children and their partners visit us and I am happy to say, has accepted Toby into her world with a steadfast calm beyond her years ... and Toby loves her!

The usual 'close supervision' commonsense is always applied whenever Toby or any other of our family children visit and of course, we never take Polly's good nature for granted; to be fair to her, I watch Polly's body language carefully and ensure close proximity time with visiting youngsters, isn't too prolonged.

Incidentally, Polly's good behaviour didn't magically occur when a child first visited. Although she has always been gentle with children, she was naturally prone to excitement when younger, so to establish a reliable level of obedient, safe behaviour for our visiting youngsters, I clicker trained Polly to understand my expectation of her in those circumstances.  Poll loves clicker training, so cottoned on quickly and now, her only tiny indiscretion is to occasionally sneak a lick of Toby's cute little toes!