Simply Not Simple

Some of my dog loving friends will appreciate this

Last week we brought home the 18 month old German Shepherd I had been wanting.  I wanted our other shepherd to have someone to play with and I just felt very strongly that I wanted another dog.   I didn't want a puppy so when I found him on our breeder's website I knew he was the dog for us.  The first few days were a little rocky as the two dogs adjusted to each other, but they got over that within a couple of days.  I never understood why female dogs were called bitches (or maybe I didn't understand why cranky, mean females were called bitches) until this last week. 

Ginger tortures Bear.  She even goes so far as to grab his collar with her teeth and drag him around.  She is 58 pounds to his 87, but there is no question as to who is dominant.  The only time Bear chooses to stand up to her is when she has a bone he wants or she tries to take a bone from him.  We've decided this is a life lesson, with the story slightly mirroring my husband's and my relationship.  Everyone thinks I'm the loud, bossy one while my husband is sweet and quiet and a saint for putting up with me.  Only our immediate family knows that I "win" only on the stuff that doesn't matter.  I get away with a lot, but he is the one to let me know I've gone too far.  It's very interesting to watch the dogs' relationships emerge.

Bear loves me.  He feels the need to be either very close to me or touching me most of the time, although he is starting to venture upstairs with the kids to play with them.  His need to be next to me has made it extremely hard to get a picture of the two of them together.  Here is 2 days work with the camera:

In this one he was literally touching me.  You can see his tail at the bottom, he was too close to get a good picture of, yet I couldn't get him all the way out of the picture either.  That's my Ginger-spaz in the picture.  She's also adorable, but has limitless energy that wears us (and now Bear) out at times.

Here is a pic of both of them, but you can clearly see how she torments him.

Hi Bear!

Um, hi again Bear.  Yes, I do see you!

You can't even find him in this picture because he is velcroed to my leg.  I give up.

Until the next day.  I will post the pic I have of my son getting them to sit next to each other for a treat.

Expressive, isn't she?

This is what happens when almost all of your family has gone for a bike ride without you.  Ginger may even be better at sulking than my almost 15 year old girl!  Such a bad week this puppy had.  First she gets spayed (and she wouldn't even LOOK at me for 2 days!), and then she's deserted simply because she can't keep up with the bikes.  I hope everyone has a great day! Oh, and if anyone knows how to get a home video that has been recorded on a DVD recorder to load so I can edit it and upload to You tube, PLEASE let me know- my patience is getting really thin.  I can watch it on windows media player, but it won't upload to You tube or export to Vegas movie studio.  Suggestions?

I really, really love my dog!

No, really I do!  We have an 11 month old German Shepherd who is the most happy, beautiful, funny dog in the world!  We are currently in the process of trying to buy her 1 year old half brother from her breeder so we can have double the pleasure. (and if by any chance anyone is looking for a German Shepherd these breeders are AMAZING.  I can email with their website for anyone who cares).  Anyway this dog is not called a Shep"herd" for nothing!  Yesterday we had her out front unleashed and the kids were sliding on their bellies on skateboards into the street.  When the kids were in the street Ginger would run out there and run in front of the skateboard to stop them and then she would sit on their head until they got up and went back in our yard.  It was AWESOME to watch.  She loves and protects my kids, what could be better than that?

Here is a PATHETICALLY crappy picture I took last night amidst the chaos.  There was no fixing this pathetic picture, but since I spent all day trying, I'm going to post it, but first a pic of my (hopefully) new dog, gorgeous isn't he?

My dog Ginger

This is my puppy Ginger.  She is 10 months old and is the happiest animal I have ever seen in my life.  She loves the kids and she gets VERY distraught when they fight.  She runs from room to room all day long to make sure her "family" is where she left them.  She's very smart, somewhat stubborn and the very best dog I've ever owned!  I'm so glad we decided to forego vacation last summer in order to get her because  she is worth every penny.  As a matter of fact the breeder had planned on keeping Ginger for herself to show and breed.  She and I had been emailing back and forth for about a month about her litter of puppies.  We decided we did want to purchase a puppy from her and we drove 45 minutes to where she lives with the expectation that we would be bringing home a puppy.   

Unfortunately the breeder had just sold the puppy that was supposed to be ours, although we didn't know that at the time.  I had just had surgery and I think she felt bad that she had sold our puppy after we drove all the way out there with our five kids and with myself recovering from minor surgery.  The male puppy who was supposed to be ours was still there because the new owners lived in another state and when we got there she brought him out, the kids loved all over him and then she informed us that she had already sold him.  The kids were quite upset so she asked us of we wanted the only puppy that was left, the puppy that was her pick of the litter.  We said yes.  I guess she was testing us before letting us take her favorite pup home, and apparently we passed.  Ginger has been a perfect complement to our family since July.