Speaking of German Shepard's

[Rorey]

7. MS

I'm sorry to hear that your husband has MS. My sister-in-law also has it, and is having many challenges now.

We used to have a Chow/Shepherd mix. He definitely had aggression issues when we brought him into our home, but I'm more inclined to blame the Chow Chow part of him than the Shepherd, along with whatever kind of life he had before we got him. My then-husband used to take him out to an empty field every day for an hour to run off his energy.

When we first got him, I'm not ashamed to admit that I was afraid of him. I decided that I wasn't going to live like that, so I put a harness on him and took him to a park for a walk when I knew it wouldn't be too busy. That first day we pretty much had a stand-off with him insisting that we were going to go where he wanted to go, and me insisting that it wasn't going to happen. I never ever disciplined him with even so much as a raised voice. I just kept him on a VERY short leash with a tension. It was just amazing how quickly he learned that I was going to be the Alpha. Within a very short time he learned to follow directions without issue, and he got to have more leash. He turned out to be a pretty good dog for just us, but I always had to be extremely vigilant when anyone else was around.