I had my first dog when I was 10.  It was a rescue we “bought” from a vet. The cost was $4, but after meeting “the Family” they didn’t want the $4.  So we brought home “Missy” to be “The Family pet”, but it slept and followed me around everywhere.  My mother used to say it did nothing but mope around when I went to camp for a week. But we did some basic training and obedience and it was a very good little dog.  Kind of a cross between a Corgy, a Border collie, a beagle, and a cocker spaniel.  Anyway after 7 years we were heading out the door somewhere and a cat was on the front porch.  My Dog set out after it and I was frozen. As such it chased the cat across the street and followed it being hit by a car.  Very sad !

My next dog was a Golden Retriever from a breeding my brother and his wife had with their 2 that they were training for upland bird hunting.  So we got into working dog training.  And hunting !  We took the dogs grouse hunting and pheasant hunting.  They were good, well trained.  We were not. Shooting fast flying birds is harder than it looks.  Unfortunately, when I was home from college for Easter my last year, my mother was worried about the dog sleeping late with me and let it out while I was asleep.  We never saw that dog again.

I stayed dog free and foot loose until after I got married.  Then one day, my wife told me she was going to have a baby. 

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So I said I was going to have a puppy!  Now we were both happy !!  The new German Shepherd Dog (Leia)was a lot of work, but thankfully, it was potty trained before the baby came.  We went to a lot of training classes with Leia.  We did obedience and got an obedience title, we did cart pulling and she pulled the kids around the yard and park. We did Schutzhund, but she was a little low on “prey drive” and was a very “defensive drive” dog.  That made her an unhappy protection dog, but a pretty good one.  So we stopped protection training and focused on tracking and obedience. Then we were suddenly living in the Adirondacks.

Since Leia was an absolute total guardian of her two mini humans, she was trained to track and search for lost people.   After 6-8 months she could follow a 2 day old track though all kinds of terrain for 2 miles. We then helped organize and became a member of a search and rescue group out of Lake Placid and Saranac Lake. It was originally 8 people and grew to over 16 in just a few months.  But then we had to move back out of the Adirondacks to Syracuse NY.

And while there were groups and training clubs in Syracuse, time was at a premium and the kids were requiring more time than the dog.  So Leia became a house pet with really good manners. Once the UPS man came running down the driveway with a package and Leia took off after him barking and growling.  The wife leaned over to the window and shouted out “SIT !”, which Leia immediately did.  And the UPS man was untouched and impressed.  Its always good to have a well behaved dog.  Leia lived to 14yrs old, and was still eager to jump for a frisbee, but at 14, she was becoming incontinent and it was time to say good bye. Anytime I came home to a mess, she was so ashamed and disappointed I could only feel sorry for her. So I was Dogless for 4 years.

2006

Then my younger son decided we should have a puppy.  We talked and discussed and looked around.  And one day while out riding bikes, we stopped by a house that had  German Shepherd puppies.  Now it is my belief that no one with a real full size heart can play with puppies and then just leave them when anyone else is telling you to take one home.  So we ended up with Dakota. Dakota, much like Leia, did not take to protection work well.  He was a good biter, but he didn’t really want to bite someone.  He was over a year old when we started his training,  and he had been a house dog wrestling with boys a little too long to get into just biting someone for fun.  But if you enticed him, he was pretty fierce and not timid. But so after 2 years and no real progress, we decided to change tactics and buy a real “Working German Shepherd” from Germany Breed Lines and proven working breeders.  And so Caesar came home from Philadelphia.

Caesar had great potential.  And he and Dakota instantly became best friends.  Dakota stopped destroying all the trash cans though the house and dumping the garbage every week. He no longer was cruising the counter tops and chewing my stuff.  Apparently Caesar kept Dakota busy and happy.  And Caesar showed real promise in Schutzhund training. He passed the first stage on his first try. And he was ready for the second stage, his IPO-1.  But,  while painting a training wall in the garage, he climbed up the wall and sat on the top. When I told him to get down he slipped off sideways and landed an his left side.  I believe breaking his pelvis. He would not jump or even climb stairs without whimpering.  So his Schutzhund  tests were not going to happen.  After  about 4 months he started to get better, but still would not jump.  After a full year, he was back to running and jumping, but not a lot repeatedly.  But it was amazing how well he would do working protection ! Its all about motivation I guess.

Today (2016) Caesar is 8 years old and has had no limitations to what he does.  Most of that I attribute to never letting him rest.  We do a lot of hiking, climbing, even biking, and he is so determined to keep up.  And Dakota, whose 10, is motivated to keep up with Caesar. So it really works out for both of them !  They are both incredibly fit and I hope they last at least another 10 years !!

2017

In February 2017, Caesar had troubles with his rear legs. Over the course of just 24 hours, he became paralyzed in his rear legs. His tail was limp, his legs were limp, and he could barely get around except by pulling himself with his front legs. Which he did, except with great frustration. We took him to the vet’s and they surmised that it was an acute onset of degenerative myelopathy. For 3 days I helped him get out and held him to use the bathroom, while thinking that it must be time for him. However, on the 3rd day he began to use his legs kinda like a pogo stick, and could stand. And I thought that is strange, you don’t get better from degenerative myelopathy. I took him back to the vet and he actually walked in on his own, though stumbling side to side and slipping on their tile floors. The vet was taken aback and tried to find out if any other dog had ever had that kind of recovery from degenerative myelopathy. Finding nothing in the Cornell archives, we changed the possible diagnosis to a Fibrocartilaginous embolism. This is where a bit of cartilage from the disks of the spine leak into the major arteries feeding the hind legs and block them similar to a stroke from a blood clot. According to the vet, because it’s cartilage there’s no way to break up the clot like you would with a normal stroke. But, that sometimes the cartilage will dissolve away and the dog will re-gain function. And that seems to be what happened to Caesar. Over the course of 2 to 3 months he gained his independence back. He had lost a good deal of strength and so could no longer jump into the car or over a log or something, but he had only minor issues going up and down stairs. Despite my ordering him to sleep in his crate downstairs, every night he would sneak up to my bedroom and sleep next to my bed as he always had. Believing that physical therapy is the best thing for stroke victims, Caesar and Dakota continued to go hiking and camping all over with me and my videos from 2017 and 2018 show the evidence of that. However in the spring of 2018 Caesar began to fall on his face. Apparently due to weakness in his front legs. We had peppered the house with carpets so that he could walk from carpet steppingstone to steppingstone and not worry about sliding on the floor. And usually if he stepped off the carpet and slipped on the wood floor he would reach around with his front paws and pull himself back to the carpet. And it wasn’t really a sad thing, he was proud that he could be independent in that way. But one night we were out late and when I came home at 9 PM he had slipped next to the carpet and didn’t have the strength to get back on with his front legs. He had been stuck on the slippery floor for quite some time it appeared because he kinda wet himself and was all cramped up. I felt so bad for him. He could no longer go up and down stairs, except for the 3 inch stoop into the house. And he would walk outside of the house and want to go down the 50 ft.  slight incline to where the boys  go to the bathroom and he was afraid to from fear of falling. So I would hold on to him and he would go down and use his bathroom. But if I forgot or had to do something else while he had to go he would walk down the little slope and slide down on his face rolling down side to side. And at the bottom would look very indignant and very upset. We tried a few things and he wasn’t getting better. And he wasn’t having the fun or the life that we all wanted. So on  June 9th, 2018 , Caesar went to the rainbow bridge to wait for me.  I’m sure I will never have to do anything so hard again.  For Dakota, we had Bonnie staying with us for a few more weeks after the event, and then my sons young Pitbull came to stay with us.  Both were good for Dakota, he enjoyed playing with them.

2018

So for  Dakota and Myself, we started looking for a puppy.  While in Nashville we looked at Tennessee “Working Dogs”.  I think I made the decision this would be my LAST dog.  Hopefully Dakota would stick around another year or two to help get the puppy trained. And then at 2 or 3 yrs old I would retire and the puppy and I would go traveling.  (Well, that’s the dream anyways).  But lets leave all that behind, and lets talk about the future and the plan for the puppy !!

2022 fall

Well,  has time zipped by fast!!  I can’t believe I have nothing in here about the new puppy!  I guess a new puppy and a COVID pandemic can take up most of your life!!  So,  to pick up where we left off,  we finally got a puppy.   I was so heartbroken and sad about Caesar I looked all over the south and Virginia for another “Brown Sable”.  We found a couple at two different “Puppy Farms” but they did not pass the requirements.   See my video on  Picking the Perfect Puppy  and read the post on Training New Puppy.  But basically the parents must be friendly,  done some working dog training, and be house dogs.  I don’t particular approve of dogs that spend their nights in kennels. During the day while people are at work, maybe Ok.   But night time is a time to bond.  One of the puppy mills we went to the mother somehow got out of the house and bit my son Kyle on the right butt cheek while we were standing in the drive way waiting for the owner.   Luckily he had a wallet full of money and junk and really that’s all the dog got.  They had 2 males and 4 females and one had just had a litter 3 weeks and another was pregnant.  What does that tell you. And All were housed in home made chicken wire and hardware cloth cages 12x16ft.  Sad!!   But we found a breeder near by in the puppy pages on the internet.  The owners had nice healthy looking dogs,  had fair to good breeding, and the Male had done some training and the trainer said he was a good dog.  The female came from decent breeding but had not done training, but had a very nice temperament.  She wasn’t overly friendly, but she wasn’t outwardly defensive and took cues from her owners to be nice.  If you watch the video you can see she was okay letting me play with her puppies when they were very young.  We paid for the puppy and reserved one I liked. Though puppies are a pure gamble. There is nothing anyone can really tell you about a puppy before it is 12 weeks old.  I’ve seen dogs from dozens of breeders and trainers who say they can tell, and the dogs they picked come out in all sorts of manners.  Even the Monks of New Skete can not “make or influence”  how a puppy grows into a dog.  That is all about his upbringing, his dog associations, and his training and bonding with his pack(Owners).

Anyway,  I think we are sort of up to date to the newest Dog, Akela.  Currently a 4 1/2 year old who is now growing some “Oats” in his attitude.  He is fairly defensive of his home and car, he will always be friendly with others on the trail, but does not back down if another dog is aggressive or rude.  We minimized his training during COVID (2020 & 2021) so some of what he learned needs to be polished up so he isn’t making wrong decisions.  But we will get him back into gear and on the training field this winter.  Keep an eye on his videos. See how he does!