The big day

Working on Friday seemed tough, but we got through it, and at the end of the day drove the 25 minutes to pick up our "furbaby". He had grown alot in the past week (as he had over the the few weeks we'd been visiting. This time however, he'd lost a bit of his baby-fat. Probably due to his mummy being taken away earlier on in the week!

The other puppies had disappeared slowly over the day - of 6 puppies, 4 were going to the south island, one was also going to be in the same town as us (as a security guard's dog) - that left our little Yellow alone waiting for us. The breeder informed us that he'd been quite good on his own, quite quiet. Phew, we thought - might make it easier.

So after signing and appropriate paperwork, and going over a few pamplets we got given in our clear file of info on him, he was released from his run, and walked down the driveway to the car. Once we got in, however, the issue arose - first time in car + very loud puppy! The breeder smiled at us indicating that this was perfectly normal and covered her ears in demonstration of the only thing we could do until he calmed down, and/or we got him home.

Yellow was on Maria's knee the whole trip, held tight against her body, on a towel facing forward (as much of the time as he would let her), and after 15 mins or so, the noise slowly ceased, but a bit of saliva build up started. Luckily we had the towel, and managed to make it the last 10 minutes without any vomiting! Go puppy!

We played around in the backyard for a bit and slowly introduced him to the house, it was his first time going up steps we think as he was abit cautious about climbing the 3 steps to our back door. And his first time on lino, as he would prefer to be outside than in. However, after a short time he got his confidence back and we guided him around the house to explore his new home.

Straight after this, his collar went on - a bright red one - and we let him spend time with us while making dinner and generally relaxing in the evening. We realised how good it was to have two people to look after a baby, one could say, right, its your turn, i need a break! Never before have we admired single parents so much.

Night time was as we expected, but possibly a little better than the average first night alone. We put a blanket down next to the bed, and leashed him to the bed so he couldn't wander off. He yelped a good part of the first half hour, maybe a little more, but quietened down to sighing, groaning, licking himself, sleep-yipping and scratching.Needless to say we got little to no sleep, causing Maria to desert Matt (who was the one to receive the blame at this point as this was "all his idea").

The trial of choosing a pup

After 5 weeks of waiting for the pups to be active enough for a proper visit, we drove over to the Kennels one saturday evening around 7.30. The sun was still up, but it had cooled off from the heat of the day.

6 dark german shepherd puppies and their mother were waiting to greet us.

 

 We played with them for a bit away from their mother, and saw that they had good potential, but the breeder admitted she wasn't sure whether one would be suitable for the sport yet. Potential was there, so we agreed to go back in a weeks time.

The following friday we paid another visit. This time the pups had collars on, and had grown a bit bigger. We seperated the two females off, and the little dog of the litter the breeder didn't feel was for us and focussed on three dogs. One we knew almost right away wouldn't be the right pup, we took Brown aside for a bit anyway, but we were proved correct when he started to whine, ignore us and tried to get back to his littermates.

So it was down to yellow or pinkie. Both strong candidates, explored a new area well, strong food drive, strong prey drive, yellow retrieved the ball to our hand, while pinkie sniffed the mince out that was in a plastic container in a bag in the corner.

It was a tough choice, but we couldn't go past Yellow, he was bright, energetic, good in new environments and even the breeder said that he probably had the edge compared to the rest of the litter.

That left us with one week to make sure we had all the appropriate puppy items in our house, and to puppy proof what we could!

The beginnings

It was Matt who first got interested in Schutzhund, as early as 2004. He was keen on dogs, liked working dogs and strongly felt that if you are going to own a dog, train it to do something. He began researching breeds first, Rottweilers, Doberman's and Shepherds all caught his eye but he quickly gravitated towards Shepherds. Shepherds are the most intelligent of the three breeds, they are the worlds third most intelligent breed and of course are favoured by many police forces around the globe.

In reading up on Shepherds Matt found out they were created by a chap called Max von Stephanitz who created the breed to excel in three areas - tracking, obedience and protection.

The problem with creating a new breed of dog to fufil a purpose is that you need a way to actually test a dogs ability to do this sort of work. In a stroke of genius Stephanitz turned this testing into a sport that indivduals could pursue and this sport is called Schutzhund. It would be fair to say, I think, that the purpose of Schutzhund is to test the working ability of working dogs, it would also be fair to say that it is a lot of fun. Lastly I am fairly certain that without the sport of Schutzhund the German Shepherd breed would not be what it is today. Even today many police departments (for example) can use Schutzhund as an elementary test to determine if a dog is suitable for that type of work. Other Schutzhund dogs can go onto security work, personal protection work, can be put out to stud to provide the next generation of champions or can just be kept by their loving owners.

Obviously Matt was excited about this sport, very excited but being a young lad with no money who didn't own a house it was just not possible. But in 2009 he married Maria, indoctrinated her with the Schutzhund Ideal, bought a house and finally in 2012/2013 plans came to fruition. All the while we have been reading books and watching videos (thankyou leerburg) to learn what we could.

In late 2012 we started going to the nearest Schutzhund club, without a dog, to see the training and learn what we could. Around this time we found out from a breeder that a litter was coming up and the breeder, who has some experience with the sport felt that there may be the right pup for us in the litter.

So on the 23rd December we heard the news: 6 puppies born, 4 dogs and 2 bitches. One of those dogs could potentially have our name on it.

A brief explaination

Ok so in our description we said we have nearly non existant experience. What we mean is this:

- Maria's family owned a Lab cross collie called Sam while she was growing up, he was just a much loved pet who was mostly taken care of by her mother.

- When Matt was 6 his family got a Cocker Spaniel who eventually "ran away" (was sold by his parents but Matt wasn't told till he was 19).

- Matt's sister owned a Rottweiler called Sky who was a lovely dog, very boisterous - a feature which he enjoyed. Matt liked going to dog obedience school with her in Wanganui and has fond memories. One of his favourites when she came over was to hide behind a couch and slowly poke his face out the side. Sky would give such a strong defensive bark you would think the leash would break. Typically when Matt jumped out from behind the couch she would turn into a big softie and come up and give him lots of attention. Sky really loved that game but sadly she developed health problems and had to be put down.

So, in terms of raising and training a working dog, we could be seen as being in over our heads (we are). However, with lots of assistance from instructional books and videos, a few friends and a good club just 2 hours away - we hope to work hard and achieve our dream of one day looking back and saying "I own a Schutzhund dog".