Black Labradoodle For Adoption in La Mesa CA – All Supplies Included – Adopt Echo

All About Echo

Echo’s Personality

Echo is a wonderful dog with a loving, silly, fun, and enthusiastic personality! My husband I absolutely adore her and she has brought a lot of joy into our lives since we brought her into our home as a puppy.

She is the type of dog you can take with you to a variety of places and for a variety of activities. Echo is a dog you enjoy and have fun with, and, in-turn, she makes whatever you are doing together exciting, and often entertaining as well! Echo is enthusiastic about life and enjoys new adventures and activities, as long as you are there joining in with her. However, as much as Echo loves exercise, activities, and fun, when she has been properly exercised/interacted with, she is just as much fun to cuddle and hangout with while you watch TV or read a book.

Echo is a dog who loves her “people” dearly and loves nothing more than spending time with those people (whether that time is spent cuddling together, playing together, exercising together, or being silly together). Echo likes to be near her family members (for example, she will always be laying or chewing a bone in the room where my husband and I are at; or she will be sniffing around in the yard while I am doing some gardening) but is neither clingy or demanding of your attention (unless she has not been properly exercised/interacted with). She just wants to be close to you, but not right on top of you.

Once Echo has been introduced to a new person, or has explored a new place, she is both friendly and curious. However, Echo can be a little nervous/shy in new situations and around new people. Echo is most successful in becoming her sweet, silly, and loving self with a new person or in a new place when she has the opportunity to meet people on her terms (i.e.- have a new person put their hand out in front of them and allow Echo to come up and sniff them, as opposed to a new person coming up and immediately trying to touch/pet her) and explore a new place at her own pace (being allowed to sniff around the area without being directed or commanded to do something specific). Echo warms up to new people very quickly and is generally quick to be friendly and affectionate towards them as soon as she has been given the opportunity to “check-them-out”.

Echo will become anxious, and may become mildly defensive, when she is in an unfamiliar place/situation, there are unfamiliar people nearby, and she is in an enclosed space where she feels like she is trapped or doesn’t have a way out (i.e.- an unfamiliar vet tech coming to take her out of the backseat of the car and into the vet’s office).

Echo has growled a couple of times in these types of situations (which don’t happen often and can often be avoided as well), but she has never directed a growl at a specific person, snarled/raised her lip, or snapped/bitten at anyone (or even at the air) during these times. A behavioral trainer we worked with explained that this type of behavior is Echo’s attempt to make herself look tough and hopefully “scare off” the people/things about the situation that are making her feel anxious/scared.

The behavioral trainer we worked with explained that Echo most likely has a mildly sensitive personality and that this makes her more aware of and alert about what is going on in her environment. Even at home, Echo is vigilant of watching where my husband and I are going and what our other dogs are doing. Echo’s sensitive nature and higher level of awareness of sounds and movement in her environment can cause her to sometimes become distracted, and sometimes slightly anxious as well.

When Echo becomes distracted by the sounds and sights in her environment (especially outside of her home, yard, and neighborhood) it can be challenging in that moment to redirect her attention and focus on you and she is more likely to be startled and impulsive in settings that are noisy, crowded, and unfamiliar to her. Echo’s sensitive personality and increased level of alertness are not behavior problems, and rarely lead to problem behaviors, but are aspects of her personality her new family should be aware of, as Echo may need a little more calm reassurance from her “people” that everything is safe and okay during times in which she is anxious and/or distracted.

It is impossible for me to fully describe all of the wonderful aspects of Echo’s personality in this space, except to say that she is a wonderful adolescent dog who could grow into an exceptional adult dog if adopted by a forever family who will commit to providing Echo with the training, support, love, healthy environment, and opportunities for continued social/emotional growth and development that my husband and I have strived to provide her with during her time with us.

1). Echo is very affectionate and loves to cuddle with my husband and I. Echo will come up to you and lean her head against your legs or in your lap and the staff at her doggie daycare say it’s like she’s giving you a hug. Echo greets every doggie daycare employee this way when she arrives for a visit, and does this with my husband and I as well. She is very gentle when giving puppy love and affection to us and is a great dog to snuggle up with!

2). Echo is a fast learner and picks up new training commands very quickly. We can tell she wants to please us during obedience training sessions, which means she tries very hard to follow her training commands, and she gets so excited when we praise her for a job well done!

3). Echo always has a specific toy that is her designated “sleeping toy”. She only picks up this toy when she is tired and will take her sleeping toy with her to lay down for a nap. She often lays her head on the toy when she is sleeping.

4). When there is a toy, treat, or food item that my husband or I have that she wants but we haven’t given to her yet, she puts herself in a “sit-stay” right next to us and sits up very straight with her chest puffed out as if she’s showing us how good of a girl she is so we will give her the item that she wants. Even though she is trying to sit up as straight as a solider she gets so excited that she wags her tail so quickly it makes her whole bottom wiggle. It’s very cute and she taught herself to do this!

5). Echo is a great sleeper! She is happy to go to bed early and sleep in late, just as long as you are coming to bed too. She sleeps in a crate next to our bed and goes into her crate at bedtime without any complaints. Once in her crate, Echo lays down and falls asleep right away and she consistently sleeps through the night without any difficulties.

Echo’s Favorite Toys, Foods, Activities?

Toys:
• Echo has had a flirt pole (metal rod with a bungee rope attached to the pole and a felt braided rope for chewing attached to end of the bungee rope) since she was a puppy that she loves to play with two or three times a day. This is an interactive toy that you use with her to play chase (she will chase and jump after the felt rope when you make it move along the ground or through the air) and tug-of-war (it is important that she be allowed to finally “catch” the felt rope she has been chasing so you can play a game of tug-of-war and switch the game up). Playing flirt pole with you for 10 or 15 minutes gives her great exercise, tires her out for a while, helps her continue to bond with you, and is her favorite toy/activity!

• Echo enjoys chewing on non-edible bones, such as Nylabones, and has never resource-guarded these types of bones with our other dogs around. She is a powerful chewer so she needs DuraChew/Power Chew type bones that have been designed for extreme chewers.

• Echo always has a special stuffed toy that she has chosen to be her “sleeping toy”. This is always a stuffed, plush toy that she eventually pulls the stuffing out of and slowly chews pieces off of over time until only a scrap of fabric is all that is left of the toy. At this point she will choose another stuffed toy to be her new “sleeping toy” and will go through the same, slow de-stuffing and chewing process with this toy. Echo usually keeps the same “sleeping toy” for a few months before there is nothing left of it but the scrap of fabric. Her favorite plush toys were the stuffed Halloween toys Petco had in their stores last Fall.

• Echo loves plush toys that squeak and have stuffing inside of them. As much as she loves these types of toys she will quickly rip apart the fabric of the toy in order to find the squeaker (which she will chew into a million pieces if you don’t catch her doing this in time) and pull the stuffing out. If you don’t mind stuffing everywhere, and you don’t mind a toy only lasting 20-30 minutes before being destroyed, plush toys are something extra fun for her to play with every-once-and-a-while.

• Echo has begun playing more tug-of-war with my husband and I (aside from playing tug-of-war using her flirt pole), as well as fetch (she is getting better and bringing the ball back to us and dropping it on command!), so it would be great to have some tennis ball (she loves balls that squeak) and tug-of-war toys, like a durable braided rope.

Food:

• Echo is very food motivated, loves a variety of different foods and treats, and is definitely not a picky eater! Since Echo loves food so much (and labs often have digestive issues when they eat too quickly) we use different slow-feeder food bowls to feed her out of. Additionally, since we like to offer Echo different enrichment activities (in addition to regular physical exercise), we use a variety of interactive food dispersing toys, filled with her dogfood, to feed her at least one of her two daily meals. The interactive feeders are great for both her mind and her stomach!

• Echo is currently fed the Kahoot’s premium dry dogfood (chicken meal and brown rice recipe) twice a day (once in the morning and once in the evening). She has been fed different types and brands of dogfood since she was a puppy and has liked every dogfood option offered to her!

• Echo loves peanut butter, yogurt, applesauce, pumpkin puree, and even mashed bananas stuffed inside of a Kong toy (all mixed together or just one or two of these foods) and frozen as a special enrichment treat.

• Echo also loves a frozen carrot as a special, and healthy, treat

• Echo enjoys bully sticks and is given 1-2 of these special treats throughout the week. We always give her the bully stick with one end placed in a “bully-stick holder” so she cannot get to the last ½ inch of the stick, as this is a choking hazard.

• Echo loves any type of dog treat and will work for most dog treats during an obedience training session. However, if you only use one or two types of treats during training these treats will lose their appeal and you may see a decrease in her motivation to follow a command as she becomes less interested in a familiar treat over time. Therefore, it is very important to regularly switch up the types of training treats you are using with her to keep her alert and motivated!

Activities:
• Echo generally requires a moderate amount of exercise daily and benefits from a variety of different types of activities for short but intensive bursts of play/work/exercise (physical exercise, obedience training sessions, enrichment activities, nose work exercises, and interactive games with us using different toys)

• Echo loves a variety of physical exercise options including: Morning and evening walks through our neighborhood; Decompression walks in local parks, forests, and dog-friendly beaches (where she gets to “go sniff” on a long lead leash without her having to worry about us directing her movements or pulling-back on her leash); Hiking on local trails (with plenty of water!); Riding along on our standup paddleboards; and even just taking a trip to Home Depot with us

• In addition to neighborhood walks for physical exercise, Echo also practices loose-leash walking at least 1 time a day for a 10 minute period using her training collar. Echo consistently sits when the person walking her stops walking, but still needs a gentle tug on her leash to cue her to sit when a dog and/or person approaches during the walk.

Echo consistently heels when loose-leash walking when walking in a quiet, familiar location that is free from noise and distractions (such as our driveway or backyard). My husband and I have begun working on expanding Echo’s loose-leash walking skills beyond our driveway by taking a training walk up-and-down our road at times when other people and animals are unlikely to be outside (i.e.- early morning or after dark)

• Echo loves a variety of enrichment activities including: Receiving some of her meals in puzzle-based interactive feeders; Working to get frozen foods (like peanut putter) and treats out of Kong and Kong-like toys; and chewing on non-edible, and highly durable, bones (such as DuraChew Nylabones) or edible bones/treats that are rawhide free and durable, such as bully sticks.

• Echo loves playing a variety of interactive games with my husband and I including: Playing flirt pole with us (her favorite- see the “toys” section for information about the flirt pole!); Playing “hide-and-go-seek” (where she stays with one of us while the other person hides somewhere out-of-site in our house or yard and then calls Echo to come and find the person who has hidden); Playing tug-of-war with a thick braided rope or durable/stuffing-free toy (either with my husband or I, or occasionally with our senior female dog); Playing fetch with a squeaky tennis ball; and Playing “Echo-in-the-middle” (where Echo stands in-between my husband and I while we throw a tennis ball back-and-forth while she tries to catch it as it goes overhead or tries to grab it when we don’t catch the ball and it lands on the ground)

• Echo enjoys 1-2 short (5-7 minutes) and fun obedience training sessions daily before engaging in physical exercise or interactive activities. Echo received personal in-home obedience training as a puppy and my husband and I have continued to work on expanding the number of commands she follows, in addition to increasing distance and duration to the commands she has mastered in a familiar setting, such as our backyard.

• Echo recognizes both a verbal and visual cue, and a treat-based positive reinforcer, for the following commands (and is consistently 80-90% successful in following these commands without the need for repetition of the command):

o Sit
o Stay
o Down
o Come
o Look-at-me (can sustain gaze with me for 5 seconds)
o Go to bed (this is the verbal command for Echo to go in her crate)
o “Touch” (she will travel to you and touch her snout to your hand on command)
o “Enough”- paired with a hand-clap (used to command her to stop nuisance barking when it occasionally happens)

• Echo is close to consistently following these commands with 80-90% accuracy but still needs some occasional verbal/visual cue repetition and gentle redirection:

o Get off (used when we want her off of the couch or bed)
o Leave it (used for helping her to be less impulsive and not lunge towards a treat or food item when it is presented to her)
o Drop it (used during some interactive play, such as her dropping the ball during fetch, and also used to command her to drop something she has picked up with her mouth that she shouldn’t have in her mouth)

• Echo has recently begun participating in nosework activities, such as locating a high-value food or treat item (i.e.- a piece of cheese or hotdog) hidden inside of a box, or placed on the floor across the room/yard from where she is sitting, but still placed somewhere she can see it (as she is still working on honing her smelling/foraging skills). We also use a snuffle-mat, where she uses her sense of smell to find pieces of kibble, treats, vegetables, etc. hidden inside of a shag-rug style mat.

• Echo has been socialized around a variety of people and other dogs within a variety of different settings since she was a puppy. Therefore, she is highly social and loves interacting with familiar people outside of her family and home and especially loves getting to play with other dogs. Echo demonstrates pro-social behaviors with the other two dogs in our home (except during times in which she behaves impulsively when resource guarding food or engages in dominate behavior) and attempts to engage them in social play. However, significant health issues and advanced age prevent Echo from being able to regularly and successful play with her “siblings”.

To provide Echo with continued socialization opportunities, and to give her a chance to play with other dogs, we take her to a doggie daycare 2-3 times per week (3-5 hours per day). Echo loves going to her doggie daycare and has developed close friendships with several of the dogs she interacts with regularly (she is not the type of dog you will find rough-housing in the middle of a large group of dogs playing together and prefers to play with a smaller group (1-3 dogs) of dogs that play energetically (running, jumping, chasing each other, etc.), but not as assertively as the larger, more energetic groups of dogs typically play.

Since Echo is generally unable to play with the other two dogs in her home, and doggie daycare is an unstructured play setting, Echo sometimes finds it hard to initiate a play-based interaction with another dog that is socially appropriate (for example- barking in a dog’s face to get them to play with her). We would very much like Echo to continue to develop appropriate social and play-based interaction skills with other dogs through ongoing opportunities for social interaction/play with small groups of dogs and through structured social skill group classes led by a trainer (we had planned to enroll her in an adolescent social skills group, but this was not possible due to the COVID-19 closures).

Cute Echo Story:

When we take Echo standup paddle-boarding with us she usually begins our ride by standing at the front of my paddleboard but when she sees my husband nearby on his paddle-board she gets so excited and will jump in the water and swim over to his paddleboard. Echo will swim back-and-forth between my husband and I for the entire ride, taking turns riding on both of our paddleboards, because she wants to be with both of us at the same time. That’s just the kind of sweet, silly, and fun dog Echo is!

Why is Echo Being Rehomed?

While Echo’s resource guarding of food around the other dogs in our home have not resulted in injury when aggressive behaviors have occurred, aggressive food-guarding actions towards the two other dogs in our home have been infrequent and have not resulted in injury, our two other dogs are both seniors with health issues (one dog has heart disease and the other has dementia) which were diagnosed after we had brought Echo into our home. Additionally, our male dog is weighs less than 10 pounds and our female dog weighs 30 pounds (15 pounds less than Echo) and has age-related orthopedic issues.

These the size, age, and health differences between Echo and our other two dogs creates a situation in which the potential for Echo to injury one of our other two dogs exits (even if that is not her intent or she is behaving out of impulsivity) and we needed to consider the health and safety of all of our dogs, Echo included. We have come to realize that being put at risk of physical harm is not fair to our other two dogs, and that having to manage Echo’s resource-guarding behaviors within a multi-dog home restricts the access all three of our dogs have to our entire home, yard, interactions with each other, and attention from us, which does not give any of them the quality of life we so want to provide to each of them.

Echo is a wonderful dog, we love her, we are heartbroken about having to let her go, but we recognize that keeping Echo in our home would be selfish of us and does not offer her, nor our other two dogs, with the best life possible.

Echo’s Perfect Adoptive Home Will Be:

Echo needs a forever family that has experience training and managing dogs with resource-guarding behaviors, as well as living with a dog with a sensitive personality. Echo also needs a family who can be consistent with her training and routine and can provide her with reliable behavior expectations, but also a family who will be patient and gentle with her. Her new owners need to be able to provide to the daily training and behavior management Echo requires in order to be safe, healthy, and happy. This new forever family needs to understand the responsibilities they are committing to by adopting Echo. It may sound like a like of work, but she is worth it!

Daily physical, mental, social, and emotional exercise, stimulation, and/or interaction are all important components of Echo’s behavior management so her new owners need to have the time and energy to provide Echo with this in order for her to be a less anxious and well-adjusted dog. There also needs to be time for snuggling, cuddles, and unstructured play together.

Echo should not be in a home with young children (due to their unpredictable nature and the risk of them touching her food) and should not be in a multi-dog household as too much activity and movement within a home can increase her level of stress. Echo would most likely do very well in a home with older children and teens (10-12 years of age at the youngest) if they are old enough, and willing, to be active participants in training and caring for her. Echo’s new owners should not be considering having children in the future.

Echo is a very social dog when there are no resources she feels she needs to guard (i.e.- at doggie daycare) and it is possible that Echo may do well in a home with one other dog, though there should be no significant difference in the size, age, or health between Echo and the other dog in the home. There are other things to consider regarding bringing Echo into a home with another dog and this is something that Echo’s current family, and her prospective new forever family, can discuss in more detail if necessary.

Since Echo enjoys many physical activities and adventures outside of her home (i.e.- going to the beach, hiking, etc.) her ideal family will be physically active and excited about bringing her along for the fun!

Echo is a dog who loves the people in her family and would not do well in a home where her “people” were gone for long hours of the day or frequently traveling. When Echo may need to be alone for much of the day, it would be wonderful if she could continue to attend her doggie daycare as she gets so much enjoyment from spending time there.

Echo would do well with many types of owners: A single-owner who has enough time to devote to caring for her on a daily basis; A couple who have no children or who have older children; A younger retiree or retired couple who have lots of energy and time to spend with her. However, Echo would not do well with geriatric owners who may struggle to meet her physical needs and behavioral training demands.

Echo is used to running around and exploring in her backyard, so a decent sized yard that is securely fenced-in would be ideal for her life-long health and safety. Echo would not do well living in an apartment or condo and should be adopted into a single-family home.

Most importantly, Echo needs a forever family who are aware of her behavioral challenges and physical/social/emotional needs and are happy and willing to commit to providing her with ongoing love, comfort, care, kindness, safety, and a long and happy life!

Additional Comments:

Many of Echo’s behavioral challenges are contextual/situation-based. In a home that is the right fit for her and would best meet her needs (and with understanding new owners) several of her behavioral challenges may resolve, decrease, and/or may simply not be an issue. Please do not write Echo off because of some of her difficulties with resource-guarding. She is a sweet, kind, fun, and loving dog who will make the right forever family very happy and fulfilled for many years to come!