I had a GSD for about a year. We got her when she was around 2 months old as part of my defense strategy and also planned for her to grow up with my daughter (got dog when kid was 2). She went through training and seemed to be learning well. She was a puppy so quite a handful; lots of nipping, a little chewing, not too many accidents, but ate a lot of poop. Even at such a young age she was very protective and even though she played hard like a puppy she never once did anything to my daughter out of anger. My daughter sometimes yanked her ears or pulled on her until she yelped but she never defended herself out of reflex to this toddler. She just endured it like she instinctively knew it was just a baby.
Well, my wife and I both have very non-traditional work schedules and it was very hard to make time for the dog. I felt bad for not giving her a ton of affection because of the eating poop thing. We tried EVERYTHING for this but nothing worked. More importantly we just didn't have the time to give her the proper level of activity a GSD needs. We had to give her away to a close friend's family member.
We gave her away right around her 1 year birthday. A couple months later the new owner updated us and told us she weighed 104 lbs. and got to run all day at his rural property and play with a Rottweiler regularly. She just turned 2 and we heard from him recently. He said she is trained perfectly and that I actually did a wonderful job with her. He never mentioned or asked about the poop thing. I guess even at 6 months the training sunk in and a year or so later, she just does everything like one would expect the breed to do. I think she's better off in the country with this guy but I miss her a lot and hate that I had to give her up.
My daughter gets sad too and has been asking about her a lot recently. Daughter is 4 now and she even said, "I wish Nema could still be here and watch me grow up". /cry
I miss the dog a lot and feel like I'm missing out but a dog just doesn't work for us at this time. I hope I can get another GSD in the future, before my daughter gets too much older. I won't again though until we have more time to devote. I'm just glad we found her a good home (I wasn't going to just Craigslist her or anything).
So your saying, you won't freeze to death if the heat goes out?
