Please say hello to Schatz

[Stinky The Clown]

She's a rescue we met and adopted last night. She's just over 2 years old and was an owner surrender. While we have no papers on her, turns out she is a registered GSD with good blood lines. For us, she's simply a great big love bug. She's calm and gentle, but with a big window rattling bark. She is just about a hundred pounds and needs to lose a few. I'd say her ideal is 90 or 95. We'll see what our vet says.

This is her as we were on our very first morning walk together.

[shenmue]

1. Thank you

for adopting the critter. Adoption is awesome.

[alsame]

2. What a beautiful girl! Congrats on

your new love bug

I wish you all a long and happy life together. :

[Phentex]

3. Hello, Schatz!

Welcome home! Enjoy your new people.

[Tikki]

4. What a glorious dog…looks like lots of fun and walks and snuggles ahead.

Tikki

[WinstonSmith4740]

5. She's a beauty!

She'll be a wonderful companion and guardian. But be sure to give her some kind of job to keep her busy...my friend's GS kept tearing up the sprinkler system from boredom. Those dogs are so smart it's almost scary!

[Warpy]

6. I generally love GSDs, if they haven't been trained to be mean

they're some of the most lovable goofballs in the dog world. I've even made friends with a few guard dogs who had been trained to be mean. That Shepherd personality just comes through.

You'll still want to keep her out of the kitchen. Yes, she'll be a thieving bastard along with the rest of your pack.

[NMDemDist2]

25. ^^^ this ^^^^^

[TorchTheWitch]

35. they are indeed really smart

And everyone I know that's ever had one are constantly looking to sneak anything that might be edible. One of my old neighbors from a long time ago had a big sneaky GSD that once managed to open his glove box in his car to get that almost empty package of M&M's. Ever since every time Gunner got in the car he would open the glove box to see if there just MIGHT be one little stray M&M hidden in there.

Gunner was such a cool dog. Every time he saw me he'd flop on the ground and roll over so I could scratch his belly (which he insisted I do for at least an hour). Even though he would usually fall asleep the very second you stopped skritching he's eyes would snap open like window shades, and he'd lift his head up and stare at you like "Well? Get busy! I didn't tell you that you could stop!"

Sometimes I think it was Gunner that made me decide that whenever I could finally get my own dog I wanted a big hairy beastie.

[Botany]

7. She will have you trained in no time

BTW your family now also has a dog who will see her #1 job in the
world as keeping her pack safe.

[smallcat88]

8. She's beautiful!

Great family dogs! If you have kids she'll protect them like her own. Thanks for adopting!

[Iwillnevergiveup]

9. Welcome home, Schatz!

She's a beauty, Stinky. Wishing her a long, healthy, happy life with your family. There's been such an uptick in owner turn-ins of pets with the crashed economy, it's good to know at least one deserving creature found a good home.

[gademocrat7]

10. Hi, Scatz

Great looking dog, Stinky! Thank you for providing her with a forever home.

[MissDeeds]

11. What a beautiful girl!

She's so lucky to find a good and loving family.

[spooky3]

12. From unlucky to lucky! Good on ya for rescuing her.

[calimary]

13. Hello, Gorgeous!

Welcome, Schatz! And Congratulations, to you Stinky and your whole (and newly enlarged) family! Rescuing these babies is one of the ultimate good deeds! Goldie says hi, too. She's a "shepherd-something" we rescued from the shelter when she was about two. She's gotta be maybe eight or nine now. Nobody knows. But dayum she's a great dog.

[ms liberty]

14. She is beautiful! Congrats! n/t

[roody]

15. Congratulations!

[tblue37]

16. Pretty baby! nt

[Fuddnik]

17. What kind of cat is that?

[nolabear]

18. She's lovely. I have a secret longing for a Shepherd. Alas, not enough space or time.

So I'll live vicariously through you. Keep us posted on her.

[CherokeeDem]

19. She's gorgeous!

You are a wonderful human to take Schatz in and give her a good home! I know she's going to have a wonderful life!

Keep posting pictures of her... love to see how she's doing!

[CrispyQ]

20. Scratches, Schatz!

Welcome to your new home.

[Curmudgeoness]

21. She is a grand dog.

And look how well she is sitting for the photo! Rescues are the best!

Hi, Schatz.

[Stinky The Clown]

22. Some of Schatz' back story

As I said in the OP, she was an owner surrender. The owner was an elderly man in his late 70s or early 80s. Schatz is young and vigorous and needs a fair bit of exercise. He bought her from a reputable breeder of GSDs. She is(was?) AKC registered and from good blood lines. She had a typical "bred" dog's name of ten or twenty stupid words. In any case, she was more than the old guy could handle so he turned her in to a shelter with the expectation she would be held for adoption, being a choice dog and all.

The reality of the world of municipal dog shelters is that the law, in most places, requires all captured strays to be held at least 3 (and in most cases longer) days to see if an owner appears. The situation with owner surrenders is horribly worse. In that they know the owner, they are not bound by the waiting period and most owner surrenders are euthanized pretty quickly, sometimes in hours.

Such was the case for this dog. She was placed immediately on "doggie death row" and would have been killed were it not for the sake of one shelter volunteer who contacted the rescue immediately upon seeing the dog. The shelters are happy to see dogs go to rescues, but only if the rescue acts fast. Housing dogs, after all, costs tax money.

The rescue, as it happened, had no foster slots available, but seeing this dog, they called their fosters looking for someone to be an emergency home for her. You see, while shelters are happy to send dogs to rescues, they absolutely require there be a shelter or private kennel willing to house the dog.

An angel (as are ALL dogs fosters, in my view) stepped up and took her.

Well, it turned out she was such a great dog that the fosters almost kept her as their third GSD. She was there for nearly three months, the difficulty in adopting her being her size. She's a handful if she wants to assert herself. Strong as a freight train.

We had registered with only one rescue, but this dog wasn't theirs. We saw her on the rescue's web site and registered with them, too. I will tell you that we knew from her description she was the dog for us. We were on pins and needles in the time it took for the registering, the home visit, the approval, and then the meeting.

This story has a good ending. She has found her forever home. And we are just thrilled to have her.

While she is all up to date on everything, we are still going to get her to our vet this week, have her looked over by a team who specializes in GSDs, and make certain all is in good order.

Also, she still has her hind leg dew claws. I've never seen a dog with them, although I know some breeds have them. Never saw them on a GSD. We want to look into having them removed if possible as they already seem to get caught on things and are a source of annoyance to the dog. Anyone have experience with this?

[marzipanni]

26. I had an Australian shepherd with one rear dewclaw when he was found

wandering around, and we adopted him after a search for his owner. The dewclaw was dangling and liable to snag on something. Our vet snipped it off, and leaving such a small wound, it healed very quickly.

Schatz is beautiful, and you and she are both lucky to have found each other. I hope the older gentleman who couldn't keep her was informed that she found a good home.

[Stinky The Clown]

30. Sadly, I don't think that can happen.

The shelter might (or might not) have a record on him, but the rescue doesn't. We asked, actually, when we heard she had papers.

That's good to know about the dew claws. Someone said it is surgery and anesthesia and such.

[TorchTheWitch]

36. yep

Yoshi and Boo had theirs removed since they were both supposed to be show dogs (apparently, all show dogs have their dew claws removed). They had it done when they were still bitty pups though. My first Akita had his though and ripped one half way off when he was around 3 or 4 years old, so I had the vet take them off. He just had the two on the front legs. That was so long ago I don't really remember what it cost (and I figure with all the time that's gone by it would be more expensive now). From what I recall they used a local, snip and a stitch and that was it. They didn't use the desolving stitches since they're more expensive, so we went back in about a week just to have his stitches taken out. That took all of 4 seconds by a tech right in the waiting room. Kato didn't even notice since he was sniffing someone's bum at the time.

I think he did a course of low level antibiotics to make sure nothing got infected, and they were wrapped in bright lavender self-sticking bandages just so he wouldn't chew or lick at them which he was prone to do with any boo-boo, and the Cone of Shame was always a disaster with him though if he tried to chew off his bandages I probably would have had to use one. He never tried to chew at his neon lavender bandages and even seemed rather proud of them. I think I rolled them up when he didn't need them anymore and stuffed them in a drawer somewhere. They were cool. They just wrapped them about his legs over the sites, and somehow the end bit would stick really well though they didn't feel sticky. And you could use them over and over and they still worked great. There was only one stitch for each dew claw removed, and the vet did a really good job of putting in the stitches so he didn't get a raised scar. Come to think of it, they probably also gave him some dopey gas so he wouldn't try to jerk his leg away while they were doing it. That must have worn off really fast, and by the time we left he was fine but thirsty. It took a couple of years for the hair to grow back where his tiny little scars were, but they were so little I wouldn't have cared if he never grew the hair back on those tiny little spots since unless you looked really really closely you couldn't tell anyway.

Dew claws do get in the way sometimes and are just too easy to get caught on something and tear or completely rip them off which is both bloody and really painful not to mention the likelihood of infection if you don't get it taken care of by the vet. Since they don't do anything but dangle there uselessly being in the way, I don't see an issue with having them removed. If Yoshi's and Boo's hadn't already had theirs removed I would have had it done when they got their neutering surgeries. Would have been way cheaper then, too since they already would have been under, so they'd just do a quickie snip and a stitch for each one.

I recommend having them all off especially if Schatz is annoyed by them. Silly little useless things that just invite problems anyway.

[Stinky The Clown]

37. Schatz won't allow them to be snipped, so they're very long and dangly.

They're really pretty unsightly. We have our first vet visit tomorrow afternoon and that's on the list. They seem to be connected to nothing but skin.

[TorchTheWitch]

38. yep, it's just a useless toe attached by nothing but skin

There's no muscle or bone or anything, so the silly things just dangle there getting in a way and growing an equally useless toenail that just encourages them to get caught on stuff.

When Kato ripped one of his he was digging under a piece of furniture trying to get at his tennis ball, and all of a sudden he howled in pain, yanked his leg out and there was blood all over and the grisly sight of his stupid dingle claw torn off about halfway. He immediately tried to lick at it, and I swear I was afraid he'd chew it the rest of the way off and eat it. I put a sterile gauze pad on it, held it in place with a piece of an ace bandage I cut off the roll and took him straight to the vet.

Since I was of meager funds at the time I asked the vet if he could just cut it off instead of trying to sew it back on, and he said it had to come off anyway, and he'd take off the other one, too, so I didn't have to worry about something like this happening again with that other one. Cheaper that way anyway since most of the cost is the office visit, the anesthesia, antibiotics (I think - can't remember if he had them or not), and all the other pre-op stuff and supplies they charge you for. Surgeries themselves they charge by time in something like 15 minute increments which was practically nothing with something as simple as this, so it only cost a fraction more to have him take off both of them at the same time.

It's funny but I still remember once in a while lolling about on the bed or the floor watching tv with Kato, and I'd suddenly become acutely aware of those silly dingle claws and flick at them with my finger wondering why in the world dogs had these stupid useless silly looking things. Most of the time I never notice them on any dog, but every so often it seems like the only part of them you can see, and they're just so weird looking. They really spoil the whole look of a nice doggie leg. I guess that's why show dogs have them taken off - they look silly - almost like some kind of bizarre birth defect or mutation.

You know, I didn't even remember what a dew claw was until I read some post in this group about them from months ago. I've always called them dingle claws since that's all they do - dingle dangle there uselessly looking weird and getting in the way.

Have the vet take them off. Hell, vets take them off all the time just because pet owners think they look weird. Schatz will be much happier without them, and you won't have to worry about a painful episode of her getting one caught on something and tearing some time in the future.

[Stinky The Clown]

39. The dew claws will stay . . . . for now.

The vet trimmed them today. Schatz was not happy. She literally tried to climb the wall! I mean, literally. She jumped off the floor and stood against the wall with her front paws over her head. (She is HUGE!!)

No attempt to bite anyone, just an effort to get the hell out of there! I got her down and calmed but one of the dew claws was bleeding. The vet got that stopped.

After this little episode here is the game plan:

1. We will start to regularly and routinely start to handle her paws. That will then grow to include the dew claws. This will smooth the path to clipping them a little more regularly.

2. Re-evaluate in 6 months. If they are bothersome, we will remove them. If not, they stay . . . . for now.

3. No matter what happens with 1 and 2, the very first time she needs to be anesthetized, the dew claws are history.

Our vet is a GSD person. She said if it were her dog, the above plan is exactly what she'd do. She is pretty strong in her feeling not to put the dog under just for the purpose of removing the dew claws for cosmetic reasons - which is kinda what we were asking for.

Apart from all of that, she's very healthy. Her weight today was right at 100 lbs. The vet doesn't think she's sufficiently overweight to do anything about. We feed weight control food for our other two's sake. Between that and the exercise she gets, she should be fine.

[TorchTheWitch]

40. oh poor sweetie having a panic attack at the vet!

I bet she's a big girl. Funny how that really strikes you when they're up on their hind legs and you suddenly realize you're eyeball to eyeball... may I have this dance? haha! 100 lbs. sounds just fine to me for her size, and she certainly doesn't look overweight at all but fit and trim. She's really a stunner!

Best of luck with handling her feet to see if she'll get used to it. None of my Akitas did, but they're really kooky about their feet being touched. Kato was actually the worst about that though he never had a problem with me flicking at his dingle claws so they flopped around uselessly... I think he never even considered them as even being part of his body. Maybe you could make some kind of game out of it with lots and lots of bribery treats. If it turns out to be problematic off with them.

[misswizard1]

43. dewclaws

Personally, I would have them removed. I am so glad that they nixed anestheia. A local, a snip, and some antiobiotics like TorchTheWitch says should do it. I have had one dog with them, but it was years ago, not a GSD. My two GSDs have just the front ones. Your vet sure sounds like a sensible one as well as a good one. They are sometimes hard to find. What a sweet girl! She has found the perfect home with you, you understand her.

[magical thyme]

23. WHOOOOZAGOODSTINKY?!?! YOU'RE A GOOD STINKY!!!!!

Shatz is gorgeous! Congratulations on your new family member. Thank you for giving her a home! May you have many, many wonderful, snuggly years together!

[Stinky The Clown]

29. Hahahaha

THAT made me laugh!

[NMDemDist2]

24. oh Stinky, what a beauty!!!

we are currently dogless. our last Sadie girl crossed the bridge in April.

enjoy her!

[Stinky The Clown]

28. ..

I know full well how that feels. We have one more to go. Our BC is 15.

Will you be looking for another poochie?

[NMDemDist2]

33. probably not til we retire in 6-7 years

poor thing would be alone too much

[Triana]

27. She's gorgeous!

Congrats on your new family member!

[GeorgeGist]

31. Who's a good girl?

[TBF]

32. Aw, pretty girl -

I bet she will protect you too! She's beautiful.

[TorchTheWitch]

34. Congratulations on your new fur baby!

She is a real beauty!

Wishing you many many many years of love and joy with Schatz!

By the way, how are all the other fur babies and her getting along? Who wants to eat whom?

[get the red out]

41. She is beautiful

Such majestic dogs; and when you are their friend, your face can get bathed before you can turn around, literally.

[misswizard1]

42. Thank you!

A friend of mine that posts on DU told me about your new dog. She is beautiful and has the same look out of her eyes that my Jethro has. And the same 'window rattling bark' as yours, only I call it his 'Cujo' bark. He was not a rescue but I call him my pre-rescue since most people would have turned him in if they were not GSD people. My other GSD is a senior rescue and she keeps Jethro on his toes. Thank you so much for rescuing this beautiful, smart girl.

[CountAllVotes]

44. Hello Schatz!

Schatz you are a lovely girl and you got lucky being adopted by our friend here on the DU!

Welcome to your new forever home!