I am a dog lover…animal lover actually. But my favorite animals are dogs. German Shepherd dogs to be exact. We came across a German Shepherd breeder in Montana via the internet. If you would like to check out the website, it is www.klgsd.com. So on October 6th 2006, they had a litter of puppies born in which we purchased a female. Her name is Greta. I will post a picture of her next time. We picked her up her at the airport on December 3rd where she arrived. She was an 8week old, bundle of fur puppy in a regulation crate. It was a 7hr flight for her and she didn’t have an accident in the crate. Nor did she have one on the way home in the car.
We purchased a large crate, that sections off for when they are smaller, before we got her. We had never crate trained a dog before. IT IS THE BEST! She winned the first 2 nights, but then she settled in. She never had an accident in her crate either. She was totally house trained 2 weeks after we got her. Greta would go to the door and wine. She still does up to this date.
We took her to pet smart for some puppy obiedience training and some puppy socialization. Would I do it again? NO! My husband and I had dogs all of our lives, but it was our last Sheperd that shook our confidence, which made us make the choice for some training. After a few sessions at PetSmart, we knew it was a waste of time and money.
The “other” Shepherd I referred to was a male named Baron. He was obsessive compulsive, had seperation anxiety and ate “everything” in site. And that was his demise. Baron would eat pajamas, socks, shorts, towels….anything he could get his mouth on. In September of 2006, Baron ate “something” that got lodged in his small intestines. $1700 later, after surgery, we were told it was the tie to my bathrobe. Less than a month later, yup, you guessed it..he did it again. Worse this time. So he was put down at only 7yrs old. IF we had gone ahead with another surgery, which the vet said would be risky, he would have had to come home with a muzzle and on prozak. We definately opted out for that.
So here we are again, except this time a female. Greta is sweet and yet very playful. She gets up at 5:30am, which at that time she eats and goes outside for a bit. Than she either comes to work with me (I work for a small company) or she is crated while we are at work. Greta is fed about 4pm and taken for a walk. She then just fits into our routine and usually goes to her crate about 9pm to sleep. She is a joy…and a lot of work.
In my next post, I will post a picture of her. The pictures are all on our desktop computer. I am currently on the lap top. No pictures on this one.
So in closing, if you are an animal/dog lover, please return to this site and maybe you can post some comments on your experiences.
