Free 9 month old German shepherd

[fladogfan aka Gretchen 259]

I love happy endings! 

Joan is so beautiful and only 8-9 months old.  What a dog she will be!  

  I'm glad your trainer is working out well for you.

 

Some people will call this a co-incidence but I think it is a God-incidence.

[Duane 152]

I too agree with the others who have posted, this story is so awesome.  Kind of gives a new meaning to a "live trip report"!

[Roberta 42]

On 1/13/2017 at 10:16 AM, ThemeParkCommando said:

The reason the dog acted out at the Fort,  was not because she thought she was alpha of her family  No 8 month old puppy challenges for alpha spot in a pack.   The reason this pup ate the camper, was because she was 8 months old, in a new place with new sounds and smells, and her family had all left.  To a dog, this means abandonment.   She ate the trailer because she wanted out, and wanted to be with her family in this scary new place.   This could happen to anyone traveling with a puppy when camping out.   Until the puppy has some experience of camping and moving around from place to place,  it's very nerve wracking for them.

Oh, absolutely! I completely agree and so does our trainer. When Andy dropped off Joan, she clearly looked to him for direction. Her body language was obvious that she looked to him as a leader. 

Joan is a high drive, high energy dog and needs something to do. All things were combined, as you stated above, to make for a disaster. 

I was only referring to the training we are doing at our home. She is never going to be left alone anyway. During her testing, we were not even really gone, just spying on her.  Our family dynamics allow us to have at least some family members with our dogs 100% of the time. Once she is a service dog, of course, she will go anywhere our son goes.

Our trainer just wanted to get us in a position to be above Joan in pecking order. We didn't know how to accomplish that, without negativity,  and she feels much more secure now that she sees two of us as people to look toward for leadership. 

 

 

On 1/13/2017 at 10:16 AM, ThemeParkCommando said:

She also could be in the middle of one of the 'fear stages' of growing up.    Please ask your trainer about fear stages.  In GSD's, they are significant.   If you are not being encouraged to take your dog out into public places to practice your training around other humans and animals, please start doing this, under your trainer's direction.

Our trainer does this with us as part of her training. We have already been to Home Depot with trainer and Joan. She did phenomenally. When told to wait, she sat in the middle of an aisle and could not even be distracted by someone intentionally spinning and banging one of those big orange lumber carts, further down the aisle. Not sure why our trainer starts everyone at Home Depot, maybe because the lack of dog treats. But will be moving up to Petsmart this coming Wednesday. 

 

On 1/13/2017 at 10:49 AM, Tri-Circle-D said:

This amazing story just keeps getting better.

This trainer you have coming to the house sounds awesome.  How did you find her?

TCD

She was recommended by the group that will be doing Joan's service dog training. She lives in the next town over, which made it really convenient.  

She does something called Natural Dog Training which uses very few words, mostly hand signals and and body language to simulate the way dogs naturally communicate with each other. This method agrees with me as I don't believe in aggressive training methods. 

[ThemeParkCommando 81]

Quote

Not sure why our trainer starts everyone at Home Depot, maybe because the lack of dog treats. But will be moving up to Petsmart this coming Wednesday. 
 

I also start people at Lowe's or Home Depot.   They are dog friendly ( in most places), have a decent amount of space in the aisles,  lot's of different, distracting scents and sounds to work with,  and friendly people to greet but fewer chances of running into an unruly dog, such as you would find at a pet store.   Also, as you say,  no treats at snout level.    A good place to practice! 

My second favorite place to practice is around dog parks,  where the trainee can see other dogs, but has to learn that they cannot interact with the other dogs until given permission.  Helps a lot with dogs that have leash aggression or other dog related issues. 

I agree with your trainers methods,  I've trained long enough to have started with the old choke chain methods, moved to the playtraining methods and then to the positive reinforcement only.   Of all the methods I've trained in,  the positive reinforcement methods have been the most successful.

[Retired and Happy (Ken) 101]

What a great story.  A storybook ending (or chapter) for everyone, and quite informative to all of us.

 

[Roberta 42]

Just wanted to update. Joan got a name change to Addie a few days after being here. It's short for Adilee, a German name that means "powerful." Our son really loved the meaning of it as he feels like he has lost most power over his life. Addie will be giving some of that back to him. We tried it out to see if she would respond to it, as we didn't want to traumatize her. She seemed to know immediately that it was her. So she is now "Addie."

She has been in training since a week after we got her. She is so smart and amazing. She picked up all her commands within a few minutes and has perfected all of them. She walks on a lead so beautifully now. She stays a few inches from our side with her front legs just behind ours. She sits when we stop, automatically. As much fun as this is to see, I do resist stopped 10 times in 20' just to watch our sweet, smart girl and marvel in her goodness.

We love her so very much, that I cannot imagine life without her. She has been a huge blessing. Not long after we got Addie, our oldest, a Newfoundland/Shepherd mix, had a stroke and had to be euthanized. She was almost 15 years old. It was a very hard time for all of us. She had been born in our home, to a mother to young to have her. We had the pregnant mama from a neighbor who kept her on a chain outside. We didn't even know she was pregnant, she was only about 10 months old and fairly thin.

We had an appointment to get her fixed and get her shots. So, imagine our shock, when she ran across the living room just a few days prior the appointment and a puppy fell out of her! That puppy was followed by 10 more. The mama didn't want anything to do with the pups. Poor thing was just a baby herself. We tried  holding her down to let the babies nurse, but wasn't working. I went to Tractor Supply and got puppy milk and bottles and began bottle feeding them. Eight of the pups went to heaven in short order. I took the remaining to the vet and found out they were terribly premature. Only two survived the next week, girls - Faith and Hope.

We found a good home for one puppy, and they chose Hope. We kept Faith, who we always called Faithie. She grew to be a strong, 140 lb alpha dog of our family for many, many years. Her and I had a special bond, as I was the one that bottle nursed her 24/7 in the beginning of her life. She slept with me until she was too old to get on the bed. For her last years, she was on pain medicine and had difficulty with steps. On her worst days, my husband or son would carry her up and down to do her business. I knew she was way past her life expectancy, but honestly couldn't part with her as long as we could keep her from being in pain most of the time.

So, anyway, this post was supposed to be about Addie ... When Faithie had a stroke and had to go to heaven, Addie filled that spot in my broken heart. I didn't realize "I" needed her, but I certainly did. Faithie can never be replaced, as no person or dog can, but Addie has brought me so much love and happiness that the grieving process was lessened. Addie and her training fill us all with the beauty of fresh, new life. She is yet a baby, although a big one. Although she will eventually be a service dog for our son, she is so incredibly loved by every member of our family. I would take a bullet for her, or our other dogs, and I know they would for me as well.

Something that I never told Andy, as I didn't want to make the separation worse on him or his mom - for the first few days Addie was here, while she was still Joan, she would ask me to get her travel bag down for her to sniff and then lay her head on it. I always kept it up, but in her sight as I know she really wanted it her first night. When she would go to it, and want it down, I would sit with her, rub her, and tell her how loved she was. I would assure her that she was loved and that's why she was here. Just like an adopted child. After three days, she kept asking to have her travel bag. That's when we took the chance on changing her name. I left the travel bag out for another two weeks, but she never asked for it again, so I finally put it up.

We are packing up to leave for the Fort for 5 nights on Sunday. I did cut it down by one day, as we were originally scheduled for six nights. Our younger son (23) will be staying home with the dogs and will not be working for the week. He will be here full time with the dogs. Even so, I am stressed about going away for that long without the dogs. I came very close to canceling our trip. Depending on things go with us humans, we may end up cutting it short. We were away from Blaze, our other dog, for the first time in December and everything went fine. I was just as stressed leaving him for the first time. I'll be talking to Levi several times a day to check on them both. 

We are frequent campers, but our dogs go where we go. Can't do this in Disney. Once Addie goes through her service dog training, which she will easily ace, she will be able to go on cruises with us as well. That is about the only other vacation we take. 

Well, I know I've been babbling. Just wanted to update everyone how this story is going. I believe with all of my heart that Addie was meant to be with our family since birth, just none of us knew that. She will giving our son back his power and she filled what would have been an empty spot in all of our lives. 

[Roberta 42]

It's been a minute. 🙂

Just a quick update to this story. Our beautiful girl, Addie, will be 6 years old in April! Time flies by so fast. Addie has been such a blessing to our lives, we love her very, very much. She is a joy to everyone who meets here, after they get over their initial fear. She looks very intimidating, running up to someone to say hello, but she is a sweetie, and that's all she is trying to do. 

She's such a good girl. I've had a fifth grandchild, my first girl, who is four years old now. She lives here on the same property with us and despite the enormous size difference, Addie has been taking orders from her since she was old enough to talk. 

Of course all of our grandchildren have been taught respect for our animals, since birth. They don't pull hair or tails, or get in animals' space. But Ms. Tiny-Mite does know Addie's commands and uses them effectively. 

As gentle and amazing as Addie is with children, and our friends & family, she is also a wonderful protection dog. NOBODY that she doesn't know will be allowed anywhere near the children. She's not crazy about strangers around us, either, but she behaves when we tell her to. 

I'm so thankful for both us and Addie that Andrew chose us to be her family. She does have separation anxiety, which was why she ate Andrew's new fifth wheel. 🤣 We are a perfect family for that because there is always someone here. We have three homes on our property now, with nine family members living here. Addie is very rarely alone, probably not more than an hour in the past couple of years. That would be difficult to do for most families. 

Anyway, thanks for listening to my brag post. We lost one of our feral cats on Saturday, so I'm feeling emotional about our babies. ❤️

 

[Grumpy and Grandma 740]

Thanks for the update Roberta.