Those straight ears are now folded over the top of Dutch’s head, with the tips slightly crossed, tepee fashion. He seems bigger every day, especially when I look back over his baby pictures. I love seeing the pictures of his brothers and sisters, and reading about all their adventures.
In contrast, we are doing rather mundane things each day. Outdoors, we enjoy hiking, mostly with a loose lead, reserving the intensive foosing for the sidewalks and paths, to avoid tiring him. We are refining our sits and downs, staying in place, and recall work. We are now adding duration and distraction to challenge him. Believe me, the cat is a HUGE distraction, and he is performing admirably, with no barking or frenzied chase .
We are also linking the collar tone to the verbal and hand signal for recalls, since he may not always have us in line of sight, hear us due to distance. I can see him lock onto me instantly now with the tone, but still waiting for the verbal or hand signal, which follows almost immediately.
For fun, we’ve added the head tilt command: we say “What???” and he immediately tilts his head to that puzzled expression GSD’s are famous for. There’s a slight tilt in the picture below, but he can really crank it at times!
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Awww!! I Love tepee ears! I remember when Roman had them. My mom was so afraid that his ears would never stand up straight. Hee hee!
Dutch is a very handsome conehead.
Oh my gosh Beverly, he looks exactly like Gavin at that age, Gavin’s ears were just like that! I miss those days, they were so much fun, enjoy these precious short times of puppyhood with beautiful Dutch!
You are so right – these puppy days are flying by, and he’s changing daily! Do you really think he looks like his handsome father? I’ve been trying to find pictures of Gavin when he was young, but have only been able to come up pic’s of him as an adult. It would be fun for all of us if you could post some of his early photos! I can’t find early pic’s of Kira, either, which I’d enjoy seeing, as well. If they are somewhere on the blog, I’d like to know how to access them.
Yes Beverly, he looks a lot like Gavin, most of Gavin’s pictures are on this blog, maybe in the search, I sadly had most of his photos on my old phone, which I dropped in a water trough!! 🙁
A couple of ways to find pictures of Gavin as a youngster:
Gavin has his own category on the blog, so you can select his category.
Use the search tool in the main header to the right of “Long Dangerous Tails” The earliest pictures will not have his name and if the posts so you may want to search for G-litter, G litter, G force, G pup. Hopefully the posts are tagged properly or have a reference that will allow you to pull them up. There are nearly 20,000 photos on the this blog.
I just tried to find his puppy pictures. If you search for “G litter” you will get every post with “g” and “litter” in the post of comments. That is why I am really trying to carefully mark all posts like “G-litter” so we can find them again. I remember that Carole and Lies both had some really super pictures of the G-litter puppies.
This is another way to find pictures, Gavin was born June 2, 2009 so open up June, July, and August 2009
I was waiting for you to say this!
You are such a HUNK Dutch!!
Beverly, are you going to show him?
We haven’t shown dogs in many years, but we’ve actually talked about showing Dutch. One of our male Labs took first place among Labs, but we didn’t pursue it because the children were young then. Compared to Schutzhund and Agility, it must seem like a brainless “beauty contest,” but it can be fun traveling and showing him off. If he does well in New England, we’d hire a handler, but we’d always be with him. The joys of retirement!
W. Dutch looks so handsome.
Beverly, have you shown in the German type shows before? I had only done AKC shows with Labrador Retrievers also – the German shows are totally different and I had a lot to learn. You will need a handler as you have to “double handle” and run around the outside of the ring!! Julie gave us good advice to go to a smaller show to learn the ropes before we went to NASS with Ivan.
No, Lynda, I’ve only shown Lab in AKC shows. I didn’t realize that they are so different. We’ve been told of an expert who travels extensively providing consultations reqarding show potential. Before investing much time and money, we’d have her visit to determine his potential in the show ring. If it doesn’t seem worthwhile, there are so many other activities we can enjoy with him.
There is a Schutzhund club that meets in New York on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings. When he completes his vaccinations, we can go there. He’s a little behind because we wanted to wait for his ears to clear up. They are looking fantastic now, so we can probably get the second shot next week. By the way, sometimes dog food that contains grain can contribute to yeast infections and skin problems. We switched to feeding raw, following a couple of Karen’s recipes (alternating chicken & beef), and giving him probiotics and supplements. He is looking awesome, don’t you think? The little piggy LOVES it, and I’m a cook who loves to see my efforts in the kitchen appreciated!
He does look very good Bev. He looks he has caught up with Oso as far as weight – Oso was up to 26 pounds last week. I think he looks like Gavin too and Gavin is a beautiful beast.