Poll of dog owners - Page 2

i have 3, wife has 2, kid has 2, raising one pup for a friend, 2 more pups needing homes from another friend. 10 total, all working. pups live inside when we are home untill crate trained. we also teach our pups that crates are where you get food. makes them like them more. all live in kennels when they are not with us (yes all 10 go to training). young dogs are rotated in the house, pretty much an all day/night process. how does it work, pretty well. 1)2 schh 1's, 1 bh, the rest are too young to trail. 2)they all learn house manners as they grow up 3)kennel time makes them want to be with us that much more when its time to work. unless it is steaming hot we take some of the dogs with us everywhere. my boss allows the dogs to come into the shop, where they get exposure to a lot of noises, people, slick floors, stairs, etc. as you can tell i dont think you can overexpose a dog, at any age. for us training starts as soon as we get a pup and never ends. john 4pack, hows baden? his two sisters here are still little monsters with no signs of slowing down.

I currently have 3 dogs and am getting a new puppy in 2 days (YIPPEE)! One 9 yr. female is DDR/working...one 12 year female is working/WG show cross...a 2.5 yr. male is a hodgepodge...WG show/WG working/a tich of American...new pup coming is WG Show/Herding lines. I have always raised my dogs in the house. I have two 500 crates set up in the living room and a large wire crate in my bedroom. The doors are usually just open. The dogs used the furniture too.I have a large fenced yard and a large kennel run with a heated shed, that rarely gets used. I haven't accomplished much lately with my dogs because of a job I had. I have plans to begin getting back into the working game. In the past (dogs in the past were raised the same) I worked and titled them in AKC Obedience/tracking also Schutzhund. I guess the reason I have them as house dogs is I like them around me. I think GSD's are very people oriented dogs and being with their people is where they prefer to be. The few I did have to kennel because of "issues" I always felt bad for. So I'm a softie I guess.

I have 4 showline females. One is my Service Dog. A working line female pup 4 months old and a new working line young male. All my dogs stay inside. Younger ones stay in crates at night. Aila my SD is always under my feet 24/7 365. I have a large back yard where they all go out to play. I'm fortunate that they all get along very well. Couple of my girls have SchII titles. I have 2 that we use for herding and my daughter herds too. (her dogs live with her now.) I rarely breed and have no plans for any litters in the forseeable future. When everyone is inside, they are all over the floor and a couple are on the couch. Kind of spoiled but they are obedient and do what is asked of them just as long as they move over and let us sit down and don't bug the cats we are all fine. They are my family. Birdy...

jletcher, I saw the video of them last night. The girls look awesome. Just as into the bitework as Baden. Big boned and stout as can be too. That whole litter turned out great! Someday hopefully Baden wont find my throw pillows delicious and chew everything in sight. Then I can have him inside but I am sure it will be 2-3 years for that to happen. We haven't exactly worked on control yet.

4pack, it was an awesome litter. not too many litters have all the pups go to working homes. john

Blitzen, you appear to be the biggest joke of this entire messageboard as well as several other boards. You have done nothing, own nothing and have nothing but you are an expect on everything to with the GSD? Good luck to you and your paper mache shepherds and to your fake family of shepherd owners. Beam me up now scotty or unplug the board now Smitty!!!!

Thanks, Chuckles.

I have at the moment, 12 dogs. 11 show line dogs & 1 kick ass working line dog. 3 stud males (2 are SchH 3, one is a 2 ) The working male has a BH and wokring to his 1. He is my personal house dog. We have a total of 14 kennels. 10 are indoor/outdoor combos (heat and a/c ) and we have 4 specialized units for the males that are more isolated & all seperate. Those units were a blast to design. 20ft diameter circles, with composite decking, a large cozy dog house, and in the center, a "pee post" that is 4 ft tall, surrounded by cedar bark chips. All dogs are allowed to visit in the house to keep some manners up to date.

I have one working female. I am going to get a male soon(not for breeding purposes) but to add to the family. I would like to get my female a little bit further along in training and if I am lucky title her before I take on another project. My puppy came home at 8 weeks and I crate trained her in the house for about 1 week. she is free to rome the house as she wishes but kept in the kennel during the day because she tends to get bored and as we all know boredom sometimes leads to destruction. I started obedience with her at about 4-5 months and at about 6 months I started Schutzhund. My dog is my child because I am young and do not have kids. She loves me and other half with everything that she is and we love her just as much. 4-pack great thread, I love to hear all of the positive talk on gsd's!!!!!!!!

My other half & I have a nearly 3yo showline bitch line bred on Fanto vom Hirschal & a 3 month old puppy from vom Arolzer Holz working lines. We raise them in the house with lots of love & attention. We hope to title both of them eventually, and our dream is to have a GSD kennel when we retire,(won't be soon!LOL) Hope my spelling is correct...oops-pup is calling me now!jo