New Here....German Shepherd Questions..... - Page 2

the yorkies are inside dogs?  are you not planning on letting the German shepherds inside at all?  They are a family dog not meant to be left outside all of the time.  Our dogs are inside/outside and never never never sleep outside.

I hve owned two puppies at once as well...mine were not littermates, they are 6 weeks apart and I will never ever do two puppies at the same time again.  They bond with each other as opposed to you and that is a problem with a capital P.  It has taken a ton of diligent work to bond the dogs with me before each other.  I am a stay at home parent, two of my kids are in school full time and one is still at home with me and my dogs are with me all but maybe an average of 2 hours a day....some days it is more than two hours but many days I do not go anywhere at all and if i do my husbad is home wtih them.  Even being gone this amount of time and working with each dog individually in training and bonding, I STILL at two years old have a tough time not losing that bond.  They are two peas in a pod and double trouble.  They are a constant project and it has been the last six months or so that I am finally beginning to see real progress with Janna and the bond between her and the other 2yo GSD is finally starting to weaken.

Also Champion bloodlines mean nothing for you if you just want to breed, it is part of a much larger picture.  If you want to do anything worthwhile you will want your dog to be a champion.  A gread pedigree means nothing if you don't continue on the same pth with your dogs BEFORE breeding the.  Nothing is a bigger turn off than looking at a dogs pedigree and seeing tons of awesome working dogs, or showline champions (if that is your thing) or a pedigree chalked full of titles just to see it end with someone breeding a couple random dogs from good bloodlines.  There is so much more to breeding dogs than that.  So much more.

My sister used to breed Bullmastifs and from the time she started a new dog, until it was "paying her" was a long time.  She sold the puppies for $1800, she had about 8 puppies a litter and by the time the puppies went to their new homes she was in to the litter for at least half the selling price and that doesn't count the prep work on the sire and dam in the 2-3 years leading up to being ready to breed.....the travel for shows, the medical testing, the titles.  I think she said it was about the third litter before she was in the plus and then she spayed the bitch.  Food alone for a lactating bitch can be upto $100 a week.

All stuff to think about.

NOPE:  it won't work.  Nan

I think you have enough dogs for now

i feel like i have too many sometimes and i have 2 shepherds a mali and a pomeranian

If you are truely interested in owning German Shepherds, have you thought about rehoming some of your dogs?

What exactly do you hope German Shepherds will provide that your current dogs dont already?

I only have one these days and there are times that she gets to be more than I can handle LOL.

If I found out someone rehomed a dog(s) in order to get a dog from me, they would NOT get a dog from me!

Also I do not believe we have any of the information needed to give you an answer to your question. I do not judge a home by sheer numbers but instead what are the living arrangements of all of your animals, what do you do with them, do any of them have any formal training or titles, what do you plan on doing with the new puppies, what would be the living arrangements for the new puppies? What are the ages of your children and how involved are they in caring for or training any of your current dogs? Where do you currently train and how often?

Ultimately you will choose what you want anyway but if you want honest advise you need to answer the above questions.

All my dogs live in the house with me, no dogs would be "rehomed", a German Shepherd would be offering protection.  The German Shepherds would be living in the home with us too.  :-)  

My question is whether or not German Shepherds will get along well with my other dogs, if I brought them in as a puppy. 

Theres a 50/50 chance. I mean, when you bring one dog in with one previous dog, there's going to be a pecking order, then it'll balance out. Bringing two pups in with however many others, there's going to be a LOT of pecking orders, big or small. And you need to think about the small ones. If they want to be dominant to one of the pups, who may already be dominant, and they have a scuffle, the little one could get seriously injured.

As for the dogs, all the dogs, in general. Do any of them have any formal training or any titles in anything? Any health tests? Do you breed these intact Yorkies? And for the pups, what kind of protection? Are you thinking Schutzhund, or a personal protection dog, or just expect the dog to bark? And for protection, you're going to need training, to help them distinguish what is a threat and what is not. Do you keep the dogs inside with crates? Are they with you or seperated from the family? All things to think about. I am going to advise you heavily against breeding. And I really suggest that you don't get these pups, you already have a lot of mouths to feed, lots of dogs to take care of, kids, and honestly not a big enough area for so many dogs.