German Shepard opinions...

[Maverick]

I think we will be happy... we get to go pick our pup (the litter is just 2-3 weeks old) sometime in the next couple weeks

As Craig mentioned, the breeder includes free obedience lessons,

As I recall...6-8 weeks is a critical time when the dog "learns to learn", ie, if you start training them at the right time, they figure out (how) to learn stuff (subconsciously or something) and can/will continue learning their whole life, and if you miss the window, they never seem to catch on to anything. Both Casey and Cuddles (the parent dogs I mentioned above) had this issue, but all the puppies were adopted and trained around 6-8 weeks and were pretty smart.

I remember learning this after the fact...I totally lucked out with Kody (the puppy I kept) I wish I'd have known it when Casey was a pup. I'd be interested to know if I was reading good info or not, it's been 16 years and I haven't really looked into it since then.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

I fogot to add an update... we bought a pup a couple months ago

 

[cruiseroutfit]

My favorite... sleeping on the console as we are bombing dirt roads in Nevada

 

[waynehartwig]

Hip problems ALL stem from poor diet and excersize!! I don't care what anyone says, sorry Meat and sorry vet.

I have a pure breed shepherd with a blood line to Germany, his grandparents were the first in the states. A guy I was working with at the time was a breeder in CA and I expressed an interest in his dogs, but he wanted $1200 for the pups 11 years ago. I obviously didn't bite... Then one night I was working late and I get a phone call from him telling me that if I was serious about taking her, I better come get her right now becuase the mother was trying to kill the pup. So I got a pure breed, papered, German line Shepherd for free - he even had already been training her commands in German (sit, etc). She'll be 11 years old this August and absolutely no hip problems. She can still run around our 1 acre lot with no problems chasing our pure breed Beagle around. She does have sight problems now, her eyes have this brown stuff that is covering them and she is starting to walk into things/bump things with her nose.

My mothers black lab had hip problems, to the point if the dog laid in one place for any length of time, would yelp getting up. I took the dog for 2 months; within 2 weeks the dog no longer was yelping and was chasing my female shepherd aroudn the yard. Again, it's all about diet and excersize. To this day (that was 4-5 years ago) he still has no hip problems as my mother had changed the dogs' diet then. The vet, back then, recommended putting him down so he wouldn't suffer anymore

Serious about the diet... Don't feed them crap and they won't have any health issues later on - this is hard, becuase all vets reccommend crap! Do your own research on the ingredients found in pet food and see for yourself. Do not give them flea medicines/dips/collars, either - these are toxic. With a proper diet, they will not get flees or ticks. DO!!! give them lots of Parvo shots!!! Shepherds can get Parvo really easy. DO give them lots of cool fresh water. My shepherd and beagle will go through about 2-3 gallons of water a day, depending on the day it is and their activities that day.

 

[BlackDog]

Thanks for the dog advice, my lab/border collie, (and this frigging Plott hound German shorthair looking thing we have now re-acquired for the 4th time in a year?) mix is the biggest part of life most days, and to prolong tht healthily is of utmost importance.

 

[Moon]

Congratulations on a beautiful dog Kurt. I wish more people researched what they want in their dog as you did.
Let your dog breader tell you what is best for your dog, he will know best. Vets mostly only get to see sick dogs, and no one knows what is best except for the people that have exclusivly produced a line of dogs for mulitiple generations.

Hip problems ALL stem from poor diet and excersize!! I don't care what anyone says, sorry Meat and sorry vet.

Serious about the diet... QUOTE]

You hit the nail right on the head with the whole exercize thing. The diet thing is something that should be consulted with the breeder about. I have had Dobermans for over 30 years now and I can honestly say that some of the high protein dog foods really shine their coats up, but most of my muttts and Dobermans and the mutts and Dobermans that my dad had for the 39 years before I was born mostly ate what ever they wanted. Hard core breeders would really advise against this but I have had really good luck. My Dobermans would kill muskrats and bury them and eat them when they would get ripe, eat some cheep dog food, would get then go to the neighbors and eat some cat food. She live to be 16 and survived some how through a couple neighborhood dog poisonings where I lost a mutt and several close neighbors lost dogs all in the same week. She was put to sleep later because I think there was an other attempted neighborhood poisoning and she got a little sick and at her age she just kinda gave up.
My male Doberman right now would be a perfect candidate for hip problems because I have ran him over on my four wheeler several times while he is trying to bite my tires and I am sure he has got a foot caught more than once while climbing the chain link fence. He is eight now and is the first dog I have had that has been chained up, because he can climb any fence and the bikers don't like the way he tries to beat them in a race when they would go by in their tight little spandex. I don't know, he may want to hurt them, I know I do sometimes. The puppies I produce are very tightly line bread for champion this and that, world titles and all that. I have been around breeder of all kinds of dogs, mutts to best breeds with the best lines and history and all of them will produce puppies sometimes that should never be bread to. This is how good breeders continue to produce good dogs and this is also how people that are just in it for the money can produce some really sh!tty dogs. A sh!tty dog still may live to be 16 years old and a great dog may get hit by a car or what ever. I think the reason that most mutts live so long is because most of the time they don't get pampered. Dogs need bacteria to help them live longer. They won't live long in a dirty kennel, because that is just wrong. Tap water is bad or them, the chlorine kills the good bacteria in their bodies. I don't know much about parvo but before I was a breeder I never gave my dogs parvo shots, but none of my dogs have ever had parvo. But when my dogs became such an investment, I pay the vet to do all the this and thats to ensure that the dog that I am selling is in tip top shape.
All my puppies I have sold are very much diffrent from each other in so many ways, it is all in how you raise the dog and what type of personality you have.
Well Kurt good luck, I am excited for you, you are the type of owner I wish I could sell all my puppies to.