Inferior Quality VonWilhendorf Dog - Page 1

I have been a member for a while now, and never saw the need to put in my two cents on any subject.  However, I will now break my silence on the matter involving Von Wilhendorf German Shepherds.  I own two of his, so called, stellar examples of the breed.  Both females we purchased, erringly, over the internet, off of his website.  However, it is the second of the two, "Natalee" that brings me to this forum.  Her picture is still posted on his website, nearly six months after she was sold....to me!  And, one thing I can say, without any trepedataion is, this man is the biggest liar and con man on the planet.  And worst of all, he gets away with it.  Without going into exact detail, the dog "Natalee" was a year old when she arrived at my facility.  She was picked up at O'Hare Airport, then driven directly to our facility.  We did not let her out of the cage for fear of her bolting in the terminal.   Owing to the fact that she was NOT wearing a collar, we thought it best to wait until we got home.  Upon arriving home at 11:30 p.m., we let her out to stretch her legs and do her business in our indoor arena.  After about 10 minutes, she was placed back in her crate, and we closed up the facility and went home for the night.  The next morning, eager to make friends with the new addition to our kennel, we let her out again.  This time in full daylight, I sat and watched her move and run in the arena.  I noticed a very disturbing irregular rear gait.  I called over an employee to observe Natalee move.  She too, noticed an irregular rear gait.  Please note that I did not inform this employee of anything specific to watch for.  She pointed it out without being clued.  I then called over my son, who went went with me to pick up Natalee at the airport.  Here again, he was not informed of anything wrong with the dog, but just told to watch her move.  Again, he pointed out her poor gait.  This went on until I decided to call my veterinarian to have her checked out.  Fearing it might be hip dysplacia. 

After the visit to the vet, he determined that the dog had "extreme tarsus valgus or "cow hocked.  This type of conformation causes excessive strain on the medial side of the tarso-metatarsal joints."  Mr. Henkel of Von Wilhendorf Kennels was informed via e-mail and telephone of the problem.  He calmly maintained that there was nothing wrong with the dog and that she was evaluated by a SV Judge.  And, that "The evaluation by your veterinarian is of no consequence to me."  I told him I have no idea if a judge of any kind evaluated this dog.  And now that the judge in question was safely back in Germany, who could care what dog he judged, or even if he remembered evaluating "Natalee".  Or if it was even "Natalee" that he evaluated.  Without a microchip to verify the dog's identity, I could have been a victim of the old "bait and switch" game.  Mr. Henkel was told that "Natalee" was of inferior quality, and should never have been sold!  And upon being questioned as to why he sold her if she was such a wonderful show prospect?  He merely stated his reasons were his own.  And that dogs grow out of this.  Was he admitting he knew about her fault?  Sorry, not good enough for me.  He is being sued.  The least of his problems.  I understand he has a lot of dissatisfied customers out there that would like a piece of him.  Sorry folks, stand in a very long line. 

It is time that this man be exposed for exactly what he is.  A con man and a liar and a cheat. Go to YouTube type in Von Wilhendorf Kennels to see Natalee in action.

There is NO way she will grow out of that.  That is just awful.
I'm so sorry for you and for poor Natalee.
 

I'm sympathetic, but I do think (1) you are being a bit hyperbolic about Henkel and (2) your description of how you made Natalee endure many more hours in a crate than were needed to get her to you makes me suspicious that you love dogs as much as you would like us to believe.

Anyone who picks a dog up in a crate after a flight and then leaves her in the crate for the entire night she first arrives -- or did I misunderstand that you gave 10 minutes before tossing her back into her little cage? -- is not playing with a full heart IMO.

Sorry, but when you go after someone you have to take what you give.

Um, if every cow-hocked GSD were declared to be 'inferior quality' and removed from the pool of breeding candidates, there would be a marked scarcity of breeding animals left--in both show and working lines.  It *is* an anatomical fault, true, but it's not something that would cause a dog to be disqualified from the show ring or dismissed from and denied a breed survey classification.  It would be a different story if the dog you were sent had a conformation fault that disqualified it, such as ears that wouldn't stand, and hadn't been told about it beforehand.  No dog is perfect, regardless of how much money you pay for it--there's always going to be some flaw or another, as they're living beings and not manufactured items.

It will be interesting to see how your lawsuit against the seller is adjudicated. Please, do come back to this site when the case is closed, and post the outcome for everyone's edification, won't you?

i feel sorry for you , i hope you did not spend much for this dog. she is clearly is  not a show  or breeding propect. Natalee has a very bad case of cow hocking, when she gets going she has to hop , thats pretty bad.  good luck with her....

MVF, doesn't everyone pick up a dog after a long flight, let it out for a couple minutes, then lock it back up and go home? Obviously, they were eager to make friends with her. LOL

My guess is the OP made a purchase of livestock in order to breed and that's what she got. She didn't ask the right questions and didn't buy from the kind of person who would be forthcoming with such a conformation flaw, because the most ethical people likely don't want to sell dogs to people who do as the OP did, and are proceeding in the manner she is. No way in hell would Iron Horse get a dog from me w/that attitude.

I feel really sorry for the poor dog. I really liked the part of the video where she intentionally made the dog fall. That was especially compassionate. I don't think we needed that drama to see that the dog is cow-hocked. Clearly, she doesn't have a whole lot of GSD experience if she thought that the dog had hip "dysplacia" based on that gait. Uninformed buyer coupled with a breeder who doesn't care equals disaster- mostly for the poor freaking dog. I don't have any sympathy for the OP. I don't sense any concern for the dog- only vindication.

That is as bad as I have ever seen a dog with cow hocks and you should have been informed of her condition before she was sold.

And just for the record I also cannot understand why you would leave the poor dog in a crate for the night when she had already been crated for a good number of hours during the flight 10 minutes would not have been enough time for her to stretch her legs and eliminate.

Ok, finally got to watch the video (it takes a long time when you're stuck with dial-up). This bitch was born March 2010, so she was 14 months old when the video *was uploaded*--don't know how old she was when it was actually shot.  What I see in the video is an obviously immature (and this was before I looked up her DOB), rather HEAVY boned young bitch who is *not* physically conditioned and who looks to be carrying some excess weigh to boot. She is cow-hocked, no question, but she's also being walked on a short, tight leash when she's been taught to move out much further ahead of the handler on a much longer leash and at a much faster pace.  The few steps where she actually gets to gait on a loose lead-- before the handler jerks her off balance or pulls her up short--you can see her movement improve as she gets a chance to stretch out into a full stride, instead of the choppy half-strides she's forced to move in to keep pace and direction with the handler. 

Given time to finish maturing physically, with the excess weight off and adequate physical conditioning to tone the muscles, she probably will not be nearly as cow-hocked as she appears in this video when she's 30 months of age.  She's certainly not going to completely lose the cow-hocked structure, but with the correct conditioning she will improve.  While I don't like to see young dogs this loosely ligamented, it would be dishonest to say that what we see in this video is uncommon in immature show line dogs, especially those that are heavy boned.

BTW, I'm confused by your comment about 'without a microchip to verify the dog's identity', because according to the entry info for her in the 2010 NASS entries, this bitch *IS* microchipped.

Frankly, if a person buys a dog sight unseen (for any purpose) and before they send any money they don't *at least* get videos of the dog moving coming, going and from the side, as well as of the dog when it's just relaxing and doing it's own thing--and the video starts with a view of the tattoo and/or microchip read and then continues unedited--they've got little ground from which to complain.

I just hope the dog, who seems like she's got a pleasant enough disposition and wants to please the handler, isn't made to suffer because she didn't fulfill the buyer's expectations.

O.K. I had heard the term cow hocked  but had never seen a gsd with it.  She looks like she is trying to hula hoop and walk at the same time. Now excuse my ignorance I don't know anything at all about show lines, Hexe you said that won't disqualify her from a show? That just amazes me I would have thought gait was something they looked at, or at least make sure the animal has the ability to walk all the way around the ring.  I was watching the video and thought wow how does that poor girl run?? I also had the problem with the OP saying he let her out for 10 min than put her back in the crate and left for the night, I'm sure that poor thing was confused, and stressed beyond belief trying to figure out what in the world was going on.  Sounds like nobody that deals with this poor dog has ever thought of or treated it as a living breathing and feeling being.  That is soo sad, Since you are trying to recoup your funds anyway maybe you should find the poor girl a nice pet home where she can be somebody's companion with all the privileges that come with that.