You want Princess to have a home where she will be treated like royalty for the rest of her life, so making her as pleasant to live with as possible is the first step. Walk her on lead for exercise instead of putting her in a run or yard. The daily walks will serve two purposes. They will get her accustomed to going potty during a walk like most pet dogs do, and they will resocialize her if it has been a long time since she was out and about. If Princess forgot her manners on lead, or shies away from friendly people, work on these problems before placing her. Her new owners may mean well, but you are the dog expert. Help Princess over the rough spots so her transition will be smooth and successful.
Before sending Princess off on her second start, give her the gift of a complete veterinary examination. Be sure all her vaccinations are current and she is free of all internal and external parasites and on a heartworm prevention program. Then turn her health record over to her new owner.
Princess should be spayed. It’s just good preventative medicine. A spay is a simple operation that removes a female dog’s reproductive organs. Besides preventing unwanted pregnancies, spaying prevents the heat cycle that arrives for three weeks twice a year, complete with bloody spots on the carpet and stray dogs howling at the door. Spaying also prevents cancers and other infections of the ovaries or uterus.
The last thing you want is for someone to decide your aging Princess should “earn her keep” by having a litter or two. The only absolutely foolproof way to prevent that possibility is by having her spayed before you offer her for sale or adoption. Neither contracts nor promises prevent accidental pregnancies 100 percent of the time, and they may not stop a new owner from intentionally breeding Princess and selling the puppies as purebreds without registration papers. Besides, the type of owner you want for Princess will prefer a spayed female or a neutered male.
If the dog you want to put into blissful retirement is a male, especially a male you used as a stud dog, he should be neutered before he becomes someone’s pet. This is for his sake, as well as the new owners, and is also good preventative medicine. Neutered males have less incidence of certain cancers than intact males, and usually have longer attention spans and more stable dispositions. In addition, neutered males don’t suffer from frustration every time they catch the scent of a female in season, are less likely to urinate on household furnishings to mark their territory, become aggressive around other dogs, or feel the urge to roam. In short, neutered dogs are happier, healthier, and easier to live with than frustrated wannabe studs.
When David and Kimberly Richards of Pheasant Run Kennels decided to breed English Springer Spaniels exclusively, they had to find a home for River Road Helga, a sweet, six-year-old Labrador Retriever. It was hard for Kimberly to give away her “Big Yellow Girl,” but the adoptive family enjoyed her so much that it eased her pain.
The transition was surprisingly easy for Helga. Instead of sharing with other dogs, she was suddenly the only dog in the family of Mark, Miriam, and Marco Ondrusek. Helga loved having her family all to herself, and even though she wasn’t raised around children, she became especially attached to Marco, the Ondrusek’s adopted son from South America. And what does Marco think about being shadowed by Helga? “She’s my best friend,” he grins.
