Milly

Milly is a happy, lively girl with a joy for life and a quirky personality. She has settled in well to her foster home and has become quite affectionate towards her foster Mum, but she also enjoys the companionship of the other dogs in the home, and she is happy to be left at home with them if her people go out. She also loves cats and her favourite member of the foster family is the cat!

Milly is a very sensitive and gentle dog, who picks up on the slightest cues from the people around her. She can be quite shy of people she doesn’t know, although it doesn’t take long for her to warm up to people who are prepared to allow her to approach them and give her time to become accustomed to them. When she first came into care, she was also quite cautious about new places or situations, but her confidence has improved greatly in the past few weeks, so continued socialisation in new places and with new people will be very beneficial for her.

Milly is great with other dogs when out and about, as well as with other domestic animals such as cats, horses and chooks. However, she has a strong prey drive towards wild animals including kangaroos, possums and rabbits, and would be very keen to chase any of these if she has the opportunity. However, she does not appear to have any inclination to jump fences or to escape and has been an easy dog to have in the back yard providing the possums don’t come out to tease her!

Milly is quite a high energy dog and she loves to have extended ball games along with lots of walks and runs. It will be important to her health and happiness that she continues to have a very active lifestyle, with lots of mental and physical activity. Milly would be very happy living with a larger back yard or on acreage where she had the space to run, and she is just made for involvement in a dog sport which involves lots of fast running or chasing, such as Lure coursing, Canicross or Canine Disc.

Milly has had some basic training, and can sit, stay for short periods, and has some recall. A patient and gentle approach to training Milly will be required as she is a sensitive dog. Ongoing training will also help to develop her trust in her new family. Her recall is currently a work in progress, but is improving all the time. As her trust in humans is increasing, so she is becoming more confident about approaching them and responding to calls or commands.

Milly is toilet trained and crate trained, and sleeps through the night indoors. She travels perfectly in the car. She does not seem to be accustomed to being around children, and she may find the unpredictable movement and noise of small children difficult to cope with, so a home with older children or adults would probably be preferable.

Milly is a unique dog who is a sensitive soul. Her ideal home will be with reasonably experienced but flexible dog owners who will be home more often than not and will have plenty of time to spend working patiently with her to establish trust and develop an individual approach to her training and exercise. For a sensitive trainer, this will be a very rewarding exercise, because she is a very clever and loving dog who will repay her special person with great joy and love.