Greta’s Little Accident

Well, as I have stated before, Greta is always jumping up on the counters to see what she can see/eat/play with. So this morning, when I was home alone, Greta jumped up on the counter and pulled her leash down. When she did, she stepped on the end of the leash that would clip to her collar. Well, the pressure of her back paw, pushed open the clip and it caught her way up in the pad of her left back paw. She did some yelping for sure.

I tried to hold her down and unclip the stupid thing with no luck. My husband was at work and there was no one I could think of to come help me. At this point, she wouldn’t walk, stand or anything. If she tried, she would just yelp! Well, I did think of a guy that I work with who also has a German Shepherd and actually use to raise them. So I called him as asked for his assistance. Thankfully he came over and held Greta down and uncliped the thing from her back paw. And she was just fine!

However, I felt bad for the guy, as while he was trying to calm Greta down, she was just peeing all over the place. Stepping in it which in turn was flying up in this guy’s face!!! I was so embarrassed.

Well, with all of this said, Greta is fine, I am fine and the guy did a fine job and got pissed on!! I also took a picture of Greta while she was sitting there with her leash attached to her back paw (how sick is that?), but I think it came out too dark. I’ll check it later and if I can lighted it up, I’ll post it here.

See ya next time!

Dog Food Recall

I am glad that Greta gets fed Eagle Pack. Baron, our last Shepherd was fed Iam’s.  I’m glad we didn’t follow that pattern.

Isn’t it just hard to believe how ONE company in Canada supplies over 50 brands of pet food? Perhaps we should just go back to feeding our pets table scraps so they can share in our high colesteral, high blood pressure, heart disease and obesity!!

We Feed Greta “Eagle Pack”

I would like to talk a bit about what we feed Greta. Our last German Shepherd was fed Iams most of his life. It wasn’t until a friend of ours came over who also raises Shepherds, and he was telling us how his dog use to ‘itch’ all of the time. He found that his dog was allergic to ‘wheat’. He had to switch his dog from Iams to Eagle Pack. We realized that Baron, our last dog, use to itch all of the time as well. Especially his ears. And he use to lick the pads of his paws. Now all of this may not seem to substantial, but on one of our visits to the vet, we told him of Baron’s symptoms at which time he also agreed that Baron probably had an allergy to wheat as well. When we told the vet about the Eagle Pack dog food, he agreed that it would be the best. Baron was switched to Eagle Pack dry dog food, but unfortunately wasn’t with us much after that. Although there was enough time to see a difference.

So now we have Greta on Eagle Pack Puppy Large Bone dry dog food as well as any snacks we give her. She does excellent with it. On occasion we have given her some other brand of biscuit and we will notice her itching more. So we avoid any other brand.

She is now losing some of her baby teeth so we giver her some rawhide to chew. We also give her ice-cubes to chew. She loves them. I love ice water myself and drink it a lot, so every-time I go to the freezer to get some ice-cubes, Greta comes running over to get hers as well.

Perhaps my blogs may be boring to some readers. But for the German Shepherd lovers, like myself, you may find all of this as interesting as it is entertaining and possibly educational. So enjoy and  I will be back. 

Greta at 4 1/2 months old

This is Greta at 4 1/2months old. She looks much bigger in this picture than she actually is. She only weighed about 35 lbs. She is long and slender at this point. Her fur is just starting to really get thick, long and full. Her tail is so long that you’d swear it was as long as her body. And her ears looks like she could pick up satellite TV.

She loves the snow, but that is all she has ever known since we just got her in November. She is very curious when she first goes outside, as there are rabbits and squirrels and birds that run when they hear us outside. Greta seems in amazement when she sees them. She would probably run after them but we have her on a leash when we bring her out. She is just still so curious about everything.

When I post again I will talk a little on the food we feed Greta. Greta along with our other shepherd Baron have/had wheat allergies. So there is special food for that. Will discuss in my next post.

Greta 8 Weeks Old

This is Greta at 8 weeks old. It is the day we picked her up at the airport.

My Dog Greta

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.