Chaos the Trained German Shepherd-Adopted

Last December, this family called, and asked me to take in their German Shepherd. I said yes, but they wanted to see if they could work out their landlord issues, which they did. But new issues have crept up now. Although I am not accepting any new dogs at this time, I had made a promise to this family that I would take their Chaos.

Achtung Baby!

Holly writes: Chaos is an amazing German Shepherd puppy, born in April of 2009. A beautiful fawn Shepherd, she is rather petite, around 50 pounds. Very intelligent, she has lived with four children, cats and even a 1.5 pound Chihuahua! Somehow, I don’t think her name fits. The only reason that she is in need of a new home is that the baby of the family has developed severe allergies that require shots. Gisele has a ton of photos of Chaos, mostly because she is so beautiful you can’t help taking more (Chaos, not Gisele. Well, Gisele is lovely too, but that isn’t the point here….) Here are some of the things that Chaos’ owners have shared with us:

Her former owner writes:

Hi Gisele!

It’s a been on heck of a day. How is Chaos? Is she adjusting ok? I forgot to let you know that she understands German. She was about to be trained in proctection at Florida K9 Services. As a matter of fact, they called me right after he gave you the dog.. they want her. So, if you don’t find a home, please let me know as they are amazing with their sheperds. We’ve known the owners for 10 years notw. Anyway, I’ve been tearing apart the house for end to end cleaning, dusting and scrubbing. It’s a big task, on top of his food allergies. We’ll be doing a lot of adjusting in this house. Lots of crying for Chaos.

I’m enclosing a few pics of my nephew and chaos playing, as well as their teeny tiny chihuaua (1 lb 4oz) and chaos was amazing with her.

Her words in German are below, however, I’m not sure of the spelling.. I’ll phonetically spell it out for you in case someone would be interested. It helps when they are being trained for protection. I’ll give you my contact at the K9 place if your buyer wants as they are humane and the only ones I would trust to do it.

Sit = Sitz
Stay = Bliben ( bly-ben)
come = Com (like comb)
lay down = plutz
Out ( very important for her, she only knows that this word means.. stop doing something immediately, drop it, stop , etc. .. it’s used prior to NO!) its = OUS pronounced like “ou” in out put ous!
No = Nine spoken firmly.

She also under-stands english, however, the word “out” has never been told to her only “ous” so she might not understand.

I hope this helps. I’m feeling a bit emotional writing this. Thank you so much for what you are doing.

Christine

Update 02/25/10: Beckee first contacted me on January 9th regarding a lab that was available. During those first few emails, she shared with me information about her family, specifically her children, her home, their active lifestyle, and of course her cat! It was obvious that she had been waiting to adopt that perfect dog for her family. I didn’t hear from Beckee again but little did I know that she was watching the Facebook posts and our blog.

The morning after Chaos was posted, Beckee sent me a detailed email, in short, she made it clear to me that THIS was her dream dog – the dog she had been waiting for.

In the email, Beckee wrote:

I have been following your FB page and blog for some time now. You and I have had some communication about adoption and we have been looking for a dog to become part of our family.

Honestly, my heart is aching for a dog to love again. We have waited and waited and are continuing to look to make sure that we find the right dog for our family. I have contacted other rescue shelters, but haven’t had much luck with their volunteers.

My family….happily married 14 years, 3 kids…Two girls ages 13 and 12 and one little boy age 2 1/2 (3 in May). We have one cat who is very brave and lazy. We all want a dog to love and be part of our family….especially my girls.

We are a fairly active family and my kids love to be outside. My oldest daughter and I ride horses so we go out to the barn where we board our two horses. My 12 year old plays softball so we’re always outside playing catch, etc. We live in a nice neighborhood (loop with no through traffic) that is perfect for walks. My little boy loves to play outside too and I’d love to introduce him to playtime with a dog that he can call his best friend.

I noticed your posts on Chaos. Amazing. When can we talk about her?

Thanks so much,

Beckee

Beckee and I continued to exchange emails, and after a few phone calls, I found her dedication to Chaos the German Shepherd was off the scale. She had consulted with behaviorists and experienced trainers to help her guarantee the dog’s success with her family.

By the time Beckee and I had agreed on a day and time to meet Chaos, the emails to adopt Chaos poured in from PetFinder, Adopt-a-Pet, and Facebook. I only wish I had 20 beautiful Shepherd girls like Chaos, but unfortunately, I don’t.

Rest assured once we begin to accept new dogs into our rescue, the German Shepherd breed will be a breed that we carefully examine and temperament test to include into our program.

I’m looking forward to updates and family photos to share, so that we can watch Chaos grow and blossom into a beautiful adult Shepherd.

Adoption Update 02/27/10:

Gisele!

She is so wonderful. She is….responding to her name “Zara”…and to commands “sitz”, “stay”, “bly-ben”, “come”, “comb” and “plotz” and “aus”.

She comes when we say “Zara, come” and she loves to ride in the car! She goes potty every time we take her out (every couple hours) and is just such a joy!

Adoption Update 03/01/10:

Gisele,

We had a very successful day with Paul today. It confirmed a lot of things that we’ve already been doing. Zara is wonderful…amazing…darling…sweet….and fits into our family perfectly.

Abbey taught her to shake (in like 5 minutes) and I took her on a nice long walk this morning…she was great. We walked by a big group of golfers and she became very timid…but I have her a minute and reassured her and she walked right on. We enjoyed each other this morning!

Tonight she came with us to Gabby’s softball practice and got to go in the batting cage and play catch. She had so much fun!!

We are really enjoying her…I think we’re wearing her out from all the exercise! She LOVES to ride in the car…and I’ll have to take some video of Ricky walking her around the house on the leash…Zara following everywhere he goes…”come Zara…come”….it’s so cute.

Just wanted to send this quick update…and you were right…when Paul put two and two together he said “if my house was bigger I would have taken her…”….lol….but we know she was meant to be our dog…we prayed that God would send us the right dog for our family….and He did!!

Blessings!
Beckee