Exploring the vast prairie of the Washita National Wildlife Refuge
Hi Everyone,
Today I am going to recommend that when you bring home a new German Shepherd Dog puppy that you hang a little Christmas bell from the door that the puppy will be going in and out to potty. Hang the bell by a string at the height of your German Shepherd Dog puppy’s nose. This way as the puppy grows you just shorten the string length.
Every time the German Shepherd Dog puppy goes out that door gently make them ring the bell with their nose while saying in a high pitched voice with enthusiasm, “let’s go outside” or “let’s go potty”. Just be consistent with your verbal reinforcements.
If you combine the bell to your potty training efforts, within a couple of days your puppy will start ringing the bell when they want to go outside. This will help you more quickly and successfully complete the potty training because your German Shepherd Dog puppy now has a way to tell you that they need to go outside. Be aware that like small children, German Shepherd Dog puppies will get busy playing and having fun and will hold it until they cannot hold it any longer. So when you hear the bell, be judicious by opening the door to let your puppy go outside.
Follow your German Shepherd Dog puppy outside and if they do use the bathroom, tell them, in a high pitch and fun voice, how much you love them.
Note that we make the German Shepherd Dog puppy ring the bell with their nose so that when they are grown, they do not scratch our door and doorjamb, as they would if they were trained to use their paw to ring the bell.
Exploring the vast prairie of the Washita National Wildlife Refuge
Hi Everyone,
I am happy to report that we did very well this weekend at the Wichita Falls, TX Dog Show. Our biggest success is the our new Grand Champion Heidelberg’s Nashville v Oklahoman (Noah) finished his Grand Championship in style by going Best of Breed and preforming flawlessly in the ring. Noah has never looked better. Congratulations to Dee Pierce, Noah’s human mom.
A 12-month-old Heidelberg’s Daphne Oklahoman won winners bitch both days and best of winners on Sunday. She would have gone breed, I was told by the judge, if I had shown her for breed rather than my Champion Heidelberg’s Kelsey Queridad (Kelsey).
Kelsey went Best of Opposite both day and only needs one point for her Grand Championship.
We swept all the points on Sunday with Winner Dog win by Heidelberg’s Kaito v Carlief (Toby). Even on Saturday, the winner dog is one-half Heidelberg owned by Heidelberg breeder Richard Beham, therefore, it could be argued that we swept the weekend.
Exploring the vast prairie of the Washita National Wildlife Refuge
Hi Everyone,
This as an early Friday post because, we are off to Wichita Falls Dog Show until Sunday. There will be no post on Saturday and I do not post on Sundays. If you need any supplies, Spencer will be running the Supply Store and puppy sales.
I will provide the results of this weekends show, Monday morning. This weekend, we have a chance at majors and to finish two Grand Championships on Champion Heidelberg’s Nashville v Oklahoman and Champion Heidelberg’s Kelsey Queridad.
Exploring the vast prairie of the Washita National Wildlife Refuge
Hi Everyone,
Today I’m going to discuss the best and what I believe is the correct convention for naming and registering your German Shepherd Dog puppies. You should start with your kennel name or German Shepherd Dog type or title name as we do at Keystone German Shepherds. For example, we use the title name Heidelberg, therefore, our dogs’ names begin with “Heidelberg’s”.
Champion Heidelberg’s Genny Heatherh
Next you should have a litter letter for each litter. We started with “A”, and work through the alphabet. For example, every German Shepherd Dog puppy in the litter will have their first name begin with “A”, such as Heidelberg’s Allen, Heidelberg’s Alvin, and Heidelberg’s Alice.
To complete the name, we use mom’s litter letter name with the maternal Grandmother litter letter at the end of mom’s name. Continuing with the above example, mom is registered as Heidelberg’s Missy Angelq. Therefore, her puppies would be registered as Heidelberg’s Allen v Missya and Heidelberg’s Alice Missya. We use the v to denote males.
Champion Heidelberg’s Zeke v Gennyh
If you follow this convention or a similar one, you will find that it is much easier to remember the breeding or lines of each dog. In addition, it becomes a record keeping tool that makes life a little easier for considering breeding matches and for looking up lineages several years from now.
Exploring the vast prairie of the Washita National Wildlife Refuge
Hi Everyone,
Today we are going to discuss Two German Shepherd Dogs that are true heroes. In 1999, we moved from Daphne, Alabama to Tulsa, Oklahoma. While our kennel was small, we still had several German Shepherd Dogs that we had to mete out to family members until we could purchase property and build kennels in Oklahoma. Two of our shepherds, Heidelberg’s Oregon v Burmak (Bismarck) and Heidelberg’s Winsome Umberb stayed with us in our hotel. In the mornings, Patty, my wife would take the two dogs to my parents’ house while we were at work and then pick them up after work.
During these trips, Patty started to notice that every time she had high or low blood sugar Bismarck would lean over the car seat and incessantly lick her face. Patty has had juvenile diabetes since she was 18-years-old. The entire family learned to trust Bismarck newly discovered ability. Whenever Bismarck alerted to sugar problems by licking Patty’s face, we made sure that she received proper treatment. Sometimes with high or low sugar blood levels diabetics will not help themselves because they become mentally confused. Therefore, family members may have to force the diabetic to test and treat their sugar blood level.
A Four-Year-Old Champion Heidelberg’s Bismark
Bismarck’s talents were discovered well before the use of Service Dogs was made into law. So the use of Bismarck’s medical alert talent was not utilized outside the home and dog events. After the new Service Dog Law came into effect, Patty wanted to train a full time Diabetic Alert Service Dog, but he had to come through Champion Heidelberg’s Oregon v Burmak (Bismarck). Unfortunately Bismarck had passed, so we bred his son Champion Heidelberg’s Amazon v Whispe to Champion Heidelberg’s Querida Diamond. This litter produced Patty’s new Service Dog, Grand Champion Champion (GCh. Ch.) Heidelberg’s Kodiak v Queridad (Kodi).
Before this breeding Patty’s diabetes had progressed to the point that she was having incidents of blacking-out on regular basis, and even having diabetic events while she was driving. One day my daughter and I had just started to watch a movie, when Patty said that she was going to Wal-Mart. Two hours later, Ashley walked outside to find Patty hanging halfway out the door of her vehicle passed out and almost in a diabetic coma.
Kodi’s Service Dog training began at 6 weeks. Patty would check her sugar in the evenings and if it was high or low, she would then bring the Kodi puppy into the house and love on him until her sugar returned to normal levels.
Kodi Puppy Bonding With Patty
Within time Kodi, began to react to Patty’s low or high blood sugar levels by pawing at her and basically being a complete nuisance until she checks and treats her blood sugar levels.
Kodi Puppy Alerting to High or Low Sugar Blood Levels
Kodi goes everywhere with Patty including work, restaurants, when she travels, etc. In the four years that Kodi has been a full-time Service Dog, the only serious diabetic event Patty has had is when she left Kodi at home to do some Christmas shopping in 2012. Patty had disappeared for several hours and the entire family began calling her. When she answered the phone it was obvious that her blood sugar was low and that she did not know where she was while driving her car. We finally got her to park in a parking lot and through a lot of questioning, we pinpointed her general location. Her sister found her and got her to eat dinner, and Patty recovered. The next shopping trip, Kodi went with Patty.
Kodi sleeps on the floor next to Patty and wakes her up in the middle of the night if her sugar is high or low. This is a great relief to the entire family because most diabetics slip into diabetic comas or even die while asleep. This nighttime risk for diabetics is probably because nobody is around to know they are in trouble.
There is no doubt that Kodi has saved Patty’s life on several occasions. He is our hero!
GrCh. Ch. Kodiak v Queirdad (Kodi) DNA, OFA Excellent
Recent Comments