Erica & Ilsa

German Shepherd Dog

I started out being involved with dogs at a young age through playing with other people’s dogs because I could not have my own. The rule was “no fence, no dog.” Looking back it was a good thing we never had a dog growing up because we were not home enough to care for one properly. So, I was the neighborhood dog sitter & gave the dogs the attention & basic training they weren’t getting from their families. I grew up in an area where you just “had” a dog. Not many people expected much or did anything with them other than “having” them. Playing around with them gave me an early education in the reasons not to “just have” a dog & showed me the benefits of at least basic training.

Eventually, I was “grown up”, had a pretty good job & decided it was time to get my own house, get a fence & get my first dog. Of course, I already had the dog picked out! Someone I was friends with had two very nice German Shepherds & had promised me a puppy. I ended up with the pick of the litter puppy because the breeder felt I would be the best home for training his personality. That was very flattering, but I had a lot to still learn about the Shepherd mentality. He has turned into a great dog but there was a lot of trial & error involved in his training. I felt there had to be an overall better way to teach a dog other than the opinions I had encountered through various people representing themselves as “trainers”. Just for the record, anyone will call themselves a trainer if they think you’ll listen to them so be careful & always interview trainers just like you would a potential child’s caretaker because the dogs can’t speak up for themselves.

I originally contacted Dreamworkers to find a positive outlet for training my dogs (by this point I had two) & for a couple of rescues I was helping with. I had volunteered with a service dog group in the past but had not done anything with therapy & was really looking for somewhere to teach basic skills to the rescues to help them become more adoptable. I went through a few rescues with Dreamworkers, teaching them basic training and, for some, basic life-coping skills before placing them in appropriate homes. Then, I had Ilsa sent to me for basic training because I had done well with another dog for this person & if Ilsa didn’t learn fast, she’d be out of a home.

Ilsa, was named after a character from the movie Casablanca. She had also just learned that the name was “hers.” We have no idea what her name was originally, or if she had a name. She was acquired as a puppy somewhere around 8 weeks old & put in the owner’s backyard on a chain. Two years later, she was still there when they moved & left her. She had never been spayed & was in heat at the time she was rescued by the neighbor. Of course, the neighbor didn’t tell anyone that their dog had bred her & being on a chain, any other dog who had come by also did. The person who adopted her from the neighbor didn’t get her fixed right away, either, so two months later she had a large litter of mixed-breed puppies. Dogs can have one father per puppy & it was obvious most of the puppies had different dads (for a litter of nine, we estimated four dads for sure). So, she raised those pups & then came to me for being “unmanageable” & “destructive.”

She had never been in a house before except when she had her puppies & the first three weeks after. I work at an animal hospital as a veterinary technician, so I was used to seeing “yard dogs” but I could tell that she was different from most. I had met her when she was first taken off the chain & had seen her regularly after that because she was living with a co-worker. Apparently, she had chewed up quite a few things around the house & was having serious separation problems. So, I took her in to see what I could work out with her. She hasn’t given me the first problem with destructiveness in the house & the only issue we encountered was the occasional fight between her & the resident female at my house. This isn’t uncommon with dogs who are adjusting to major life changes & is common between dogs to figure out status. I wasn’t happy about the fights but thankfully, there weren’t many so I ended up deciding to keep her.

She was a mess when I first got her, the puppies had reduced her weight to 52 lbs. and she was literally skin & bones. She was a nervous wreck from all the life changes she had experienced in such a short time. The house where she was had too many dogs & operated on a fend-for-yourself basis. If you didn’t push your way in to get food, you didn’t eat; if you lost fights, you were the lowest status dog, etc. Not a healthy household but horrible for a dog whose whole world before that consisted of the length of her chain. It’s a scary change to go from a circle maybe 20 feet overall to the entire wide world! Most of the things she was encountering on a “regular” day were things she had NEVER seen or experienced before.

Now, is a totally different story. She is becoming a more well-adjusted dog every day. She is healthy & happy at her ideal weight of 75 lbs. She’s learning how to play, how to be a member of a healthy pack & how to be a dog. She is most of the way through her training for therapy and has been on supervised visits. I have had to take a break recently to focus on another rescued Shepherd, but Ilsa doesn’t seem to mind. She seems to have a special relationship with the new rescue & they play non-stop. Ilsa has also been working on training in Rally Obedience competition & won her Rally Novice title in October 2007.

So, our house is full of Shepherds – four now – but is also full of love. I am looking forward to finishing Ilsa’s therapy certification later in 2008 & possibly starting the new rescue in therapy training, too. We’ve all got our homework cut out for us!