Dog people

[MED]

I love my German bloodline GSD. She can be trained to do anything, extremely healthy, and she is intelligent enough to make good decisions without anybody directing her. For instance, about a couple weeks ago, the neighbor's special needs kid was wandering around on my property; my GSD never saw him before. I found my GSD playing with him and watching over him. The thing I like about properly bred and trained GSDs is that they are protective but they are incredibly instinctive when knowing the correct course of action; they are so incredibly eager to please, which I think is the big distinction with them compare to other breeds.

[sellersm]

I have had GSDs my whole life, and had Rotties for the last nearly 20 years. I also trained K9 dogs, mostly GSDs, Rotts, and Dobies. My advice is when looking at any of these breeds, stay away from anything that has any American line blood. Stay with German, Austrian, or Czech lines as they have few health problems. Training at a young age is a must, and I mean starting at 3 months or less with obedience. They are all good dogs for your started purpose, but in my opinion GSDs are the ones tyat want to please their master most and most protective. But I still love my Rottie, very protective but doesn't care as much what you want. They take a much stronger hand to train.

+100, I couldn't agree more! My daughter trains dogs as well as good friends of ours (they do a lot of the local K9 work in El Paso county), and you've been given some great advice in this thread!

If you want more of a task-oriented, worker dog, look towards the border collie breed. Ours does about 300 things and is always eager to learn a new task!!

+1 to the story that MED shared, our GSD does the same thing: very caring & helpful when needed, your worst enemy if you have malevolent intentions...

[UncleDave]

I love my German bloodline GSD. She can be trained to do anything, extremely healthy, and she is intelligent enough to make good decisions without anybody directing her. For instance, about a couple weeks ago, the neighbor's special needs kid was wandering around on my property; my GSD never saw him before. I found my GSD playing with him and watching over him. The thing I like about properly bred and trained GSDs is that they are protective but they are incredibly instinctive when knowing the correct course of action; they are so incredibly eager to please, which I think is the big distinction with them compare to other breeds.

Absolutely. When I was a toddler my mom would let me outside with the female we had at the time. She would here me away from the sidewalk when I got to close, and stand over the top of me watching all without being trained to do that. No one but my mom, dad or grandma could get close to me with her there. There is no substitute for good breeding and early training in my experience. I have had rescue dogs that are great, but they took much more time and skill to get trained properly and always has some remnants of the emotional scars that caused some quirks. Nothing wrong with that if you are willing to put in the hundreds of hours it will take. There are no bad dogs only dogs not suited to your needs, and bad owners.

[sellersm]

Absolutely. When I was a toddler my mom would let me outside with the female we had at the time. She would here me away from the sidewalk when I got to close, and stand over the top of me watching all without being trained to do that. No one but my mom, dad or grandma could get close to me with her there. There is no substitute for good breeding and early training in my experience. I have had rescue dogs that are great, but they took much more time and skill to get trained properly and always has some remnants of the emotional scars that caused some quirks. Nothing wrong with that if you are willing to put in the hundreds of hours it will take. There are no bad dogs only dogs not suited to your needs, and bad owners.

Yup. My daughter likes to say that most of the training is for the owner, the dog is smarter most of the time!

Friend of mine is often saying, "if God wanted companions, He should've stopped after making the dog!"

[Jer]

Don't buy... adopt. Rescue. Make sure your 'rescue' is a legitimate one because there are TONS of places out there posing as rescues that are peddling breeders cast-offs for 'adoption fees' that are pretty high and pure profit.

If you insist on a pure breed dog check out National Mill Dog Rescue as they rescue dogs and puppies from puppy mills (the disgusting underbelly of where 'bought' puppies come from) so you get the best of both worlds. They're East of Colorado Springs in Peyton and have HUNDREDS of dogs. Check out their website but if you're in the market for giving a dog a home you owe it to yourself to make a trip down there to meet the dogs they have ready for adoption. I can tell you from first hand experience that there is little more rewarding than rescuing a dog that has been removed from a puppy mill situation.

[TheGrey]

One more thing- be sure that when you decide upon the dog, you'll have plenty of time and attention for them. When we lived in Aurora, it broke my heart to see a couple of idiots adopt a GSD mixed breed, only to leave him alone in his kennel all day long (they both worked full time.) When they got home from work, they were too tired to play with the dog or take him on walks. He'd bark all day long, lonely as anything. So they got him a friend- a border collie.

That border collie had them both out of that kennel in less than a week. I'm not sure how; if they dug a hole, or if the collie figured out how to open the latch or what- but both of them ran away. I don't know if they ever found the dogs. I kind of hoped they found a place with lots of room to run and chase bunnies and be the way dogs are supposed to be.

[drift_g35]

The only suggestion I have is to get pet insurance. I know it sounds like a waste of money but it saved me from having to put my 4 year old down for a double knee surgery. I put about $6500 on a credit card and 4 days later I had a $5625 check in hand. I pay $50 a month and will get it for every dog I own from here on out. I have TruPanion, they seem to be the best.

Here is is after his surgery.

[TheGrey]

The only suggestion I have is to get pet insurance. I know it sounds like a waste of money but it saved me from having to put my 4 year old down for a double knee surgery. I put about $6500 on a credit card and 4 days later I had a $5625 check in hand. I pay $50 a month and will get it for every dog I own from here on out. I have TruPanion, they seem to be the best.

Here is is after his surgery.

My god. That's a small horse!

[Mercula]

I'm with the others that mentioned it. PLEASE RESCUE !
Both of my dogs are rescues and I feel like the luckiest person on the planet.

[Erni]

Whatever and wherever you get your dog make sure he wants you. I'm not kidding, when you meet them are they focused on you or are they distracted by things and ignore you? My/my fathers Akita pit mix was beside himself when we saw him, other dogs ignored us at the rescue. Turned out to be the most loyal well behaved thing.