What have you done with your dogs? - Page 3

John! 
I also wanted to mention that the puppy you got for your
wife, was extremely entertaining to watch!!!! Thanks!

I have 4 male pups and 1 female waiting to go
to new homes, it was a combination of 2 ltters,
19 pups in all, they are 8 weeks old, and I was 
just in their puppy pen putting down papers, and 
I felt like I was in with a bunch of alligators!!!

Seeing most of my pups will be family dogs & pets,
when they start chewing & ripping at my clothes, I've
got to discourage it. 

They are so intelligent, that when they go to their new 
homes, they are house trained within a couple of days!

I work my dogs in SAR and SchH. All of my dogs, except one (to wild at this time) works in therapy, going to nursing homes and the children's cancer center. My SAR K9 does demos and presentations at elementary schools, on a fairly regular basis. I am actually looking into doing agility training with two of my dogs over the winter, just for an activity. Hopefully, in the spring one of my dogs will finally be able to earn her herding title, which we have been working on half heartedly for 3 years. The schutzhund addiction along with SAR training takes up most of our time, so the extra fun things fall by the way side. We have one litter once a year, as it takes too much time away from what I enjoy doing, training.

DeesWolf,

So, they "do" allow therapy dogs to visit children in cancer wards?  I ask simply b/c that is something I wish to do later with one of my girls.  My son was hospitalized for a long time back from 1997-2000 due to Leukemia and our hospital (UVA) did not have any sort of therapy program available.  I wasn't sure if there might be some sort of reason (due to possible risk of infection) that this was not allowed.  (We snuck our little Pomeranian up.)

Blitzen,

I believe ANYTHING a person does with their dogs is interesting, not just sport or training.  I myself have never participated in ScH or Confirmation Shows but, love to hear others talk about their experiences.  I think it would be really interesting to get into herding though.  And, I've been kicking around the idea of agility lately too.  Currently, my working hours account for too much of my time to get into anything much and so, my dogs are glorified furry family members that accompany us on most outings but, the majority of our time is spent on our trails at home or at the creek or hiking in the mountains.

I basically just love being around these dogs and anything I do with them brings me pleasure.  I definitely do not know it all and consider myself constantly "in school" when it comes to our breed.  I come here to learn and share.

GsdFanatic,

There are certain rules the Wellness Center requires in order for the dogs to come in. Washing no more than 24 hours before entering, only certain areas of the building, and they give us a list of children we can visit. There are some areas we have never been allowed to go into. There is one area, where a few children have been behind a viewing glass, for lack of a better term. There is an intercom and the dogs can do tricks for the children, without actual contact. That is less satisfying for both children and dog. We have been requested to go and have a dog lie down with a child when child receives treatment or to be present during an exam. Those are the ones my dogs really like, but the hardest for me to handle. We have even had one of my dogs go in dressed in surgical scrubs complete with hat and mask.....that was fun, for me, not so fun for the dog. There is a questionaire we fill out each time that is reviewed, the coordinator reviews and then gives us the info on children. There have been a couple times that the info on the questioniare has stopped us from participating. If the dog has been out of state in the last 7 days, innoculations have occured within 7 days, or the dog has had raw meat, fruit or veggies within the last 4 hours. They are very thorough, but it is worth it.

I learn with mine. Never have gone any further than a CGC and a BH.

Have started a bunch of differnt stuff however. SchH, Ring, Agility, Herding, Frisbee. Love all of it. Some more than others.

Big deal for me, the pride in ,for the most part, well behaved, level headed, fun companions.

I have limited automatic respect for titles and achievements for the most part. The only thing they pretty much guarantee is that someone spent time and is dedicated. Much more important to me is my personal judgement over how someone has achieved their fame. Thier true love for the animal and the choosen sport and thier personal conduct!

I've owned purebred dogs since 1970.  9 of my Malamutes earned AKC championship titles, two were specialty winners and one male sired 6 AKC champions including the BOB winner at a National Specialty. 4 of my dogs earned CD's, one was also a weightpuller. Another earned a Working Team Dog title issued by the Alaskan Malamute Club of America. One served as a guide dog for a blind boy. Another produced a number of titled dogs in Canada. One male was trained as an avalanche rescue dog in Canada. That's it in a nutshell.

I titled my first dog to Schh3 in 1990 from a pup before anyone starting arguing about HOT   Have done 4 more since then, have 2 (9 and 11 years old) retired now with about 10 schh3s between them  and just starting a year old pup.  Barrel race and reining with paints fills up the inbetween dogs time.

Drew

Most of you know my story but I'll repeat for the newbie's...

I put a BH, CDX, RN, NJ, TC, TDI/CGC on my bitch, all pretty much self taught, no professional help until we got her BH (last title)  She taught me determination and humility, she taught me if at first you don't succeed try try again.  I think I lost count of how many times we trialed for her CDX, lol.

She was is a great dog, extreme prey drive but no nerve.  She was severely gun shy so I couldn't persue SchH with her.

My boy Andy is my #1, he came to me after his early retirement from the Police K9 unit.  His small dept. lost funding so he lost his job and I got lucky.  I met Andy at a GSD kennel where I swam my dogs.  We instantly connected and he eventually came to be mine.  I thought he'd be the perfect dog to learn the sport with so we got to work.  He was very good with the biting but I had alot of work to do in control, OB and tracking (the police appaently didn't think OB was important, lol).  I had alot to learn as a handler, comming from AKC it was a whole new world.  I thought I had a pretty good grasp on dog training since I had been in AKC for several years but with SchH I felt very awkward and felt like I didn't know anything but I had some great people to help me.  In about two years we had earned our titles BH through SchH3, IPO3, CDX, RN, TC, TDI/CGC  

I like to share what I've learned to help others, and hope that I never stop learning.

Regards,
Melanie

Gsdfan,

Great adittude you will never stop learning till ur 6 feet under.

Good luck with ur dogs.

Here's some of the stuff from my history. (just the highlights, incomplete, but I don't have time to go through that disorganized file box of scorebooks in the closet and who cares anyway) I was out of the sport for a few years. More coming soon, I promise. Ireally need to work on that page. It needs updated, (been, what, 10 years since I created it?) There are a few mistakes and the pix don't line up right, and I have more if I could only find and scan them to disc. Maybe when the snow falls and I can't go outside... but I say that every year.

http://frauengarten.net/AboutShelley.html

SS