How did you aquire your dogs? - Page 1

I just want to know has any one any interesting stories about how you got into the breed?

My story is my family were always doggy people my grandfather bred racing greyhounds, my cousin paddy has showline GSD's my cousin richie has rotwilers we always had lots of animals from sport horses to dairy cattle to rabbits to cats to dogs to dairy goats to everything we had a pet wild rabbit my mother saved from the cat and we had a pet phesent we rescued and nursed back to health after she got caught in a combine harvester we had every kind of dog from gun dogs to collies to labradors to pure bred jack russlel terriers but the love of my life came when i was 4 years old in the form of prince, I used to love the cartoon white fang and one day my auntie walks in with a big masive GSD called prince and i loved him he looked so much like a wolf he was a black and tan working line German Shepherd and i thaught he would be my best friend forever, his only vice was he had a taste for goat meat and my auntie got him because he was baught by a butcher to guard his property and he killed a kid goat. but he was my hero. he used to let me cuddle him and lie in his kennel with him and sit on his back and walk around with me up there like he was a pony.

Then one day we came home from visiting relatives and prince was poisoned some one tried to rob us and they gave prince a poisoned bone

I was heart broken it was a pain like no one ever knew my best friend, my hero, my protector was dead. i was about 8 at the time.

years later after going trough a number of dogs that were generaly small terriers and sheep dogs and the like i found lotto. there had been a spate of criminal activity in our quite rural area and a long list of things had been stolen, animal medication (specificaly horse pain killers and anasthetics) tiles, plower tools, copper wire, horse harness if it could be stolen they robbed it and that was the least of the trouble, animals were mutilated, some guy tried to force open the window of the room i shared with my younger sister as we slept when he couldnt get in he hung my pet goat off the clothesline and i was powerless to do anything about it my own life and that of my sister was in danger, another night around 6 am when the cat usualy called me to feed him some one was at my window trying to immatate the cat which didnt work because my cat has a speach impedimant for want of a better word and cant meow like a regular cat it sounds more like eoow eoow and my sheepdog was barking voilently so i pretended not to hear and waited silently until they had gone when they had gone i went to check things out. the person in question had tried to slit my sheepdogs throat but it only nicked him the coller protected him and he savaged whoever had done it to him because the place was covered in blood and theres no way it was all the dogs blood.

so long story short i went on the hunt for a guard dog, they were all a few thousand euros or puppies but eventualy i found lotto who was only a couple of hundred, i went to dublin to see her and she was beautiful, very skinny and not in the best of shape but by god i could see potential so i handed over the 500 euro and took her home she had papers her parents were imported from switzerland but the old guy that was meeting me to sell her for the breeders in sligo was creeping me out i was only 16 but he kept makeing advances so i declined to go with him to his house to get the papers he met me at the train station and i just put the dog in the crate and went home. at the time i wasnt planning on breeding any way. with a bit of help and care she was lovely, gone were the ribs out trough her sides and she grew a good bit, gone was the nervous paceing and refusal to trust me eventualy she was like prince except white, and even better and she got on great with the dogs i already had i took her to the vet, she had no health problems so as

sorry laptop missbehaving half the story is missing so ill update the rest in awhile the rest of lotto's story and how i eventualy tracked down her papers and how i got ivor and bell didnt upload so just post your stories and ill get back to mine later

Both of my present dogs are rescues and both have been altered. My female GSD, Shelby,  I got from a German Shepherd rescue in Kentucky and our male Shiloh Shepherd, Josey Wales was an unplanned adoption. A friend of ours knew the owner who was killed in a plane crash, so he called me to see if we would foster or adopt one of the dogs his friend owned (he had 7 at the time). At the time I had a negative opinion of Shilohs and really didn't want to own one, but my friend was persuasive and to make a long story short, we adopted Josey and have NO regrets.  In the past I have purchased both WL and SL GSD puppies/dogs from a breeder, but have also rescued and adopted a number of other dogs (and cats).

April, Is it true that  you are breeding white rescue GSDs? If so, that is very disturbing. Of course, there are a lot of disturbing things going on in the dog world. There are many registered GSDs being bred that are knowingly riddled with health issues and other faults, which is inexcusable as well. Both practices are just plain wrong. As someone said in an above post, if you really love the dogs you would have THEIR best interest at heart and not your own.