Zenjenny, we tried steadily for two years to find a German Shepherd rescue, but here in Newfoundland at least, there just weren't any, and we didn't want to have to resort to having one flown in from out of province. We eventually discovered an amazing young couple living on the west coast of Newfoundland who were breeding their champion German Shepherds, Roxie and Deisel, for the first time, and from the very moment we laid eyes on Mom and Dad we were completely hooked! Several thousand dollars later, we were soon bringing home our beautiful little Sheba at just 8 weeks old. I wish that I could post a few pics of her as a (stunningly beautiful) tiny puppy, but unfortunately we have no mobile photos of her at that age, so you'll have to visit my photography website to see pics of her as a baby. On my "Focus On Newfoundland" website I have an entire photo gallery dedicated to Sheba growing up at
www.focusonnewfoundland.com/gallery_728719.html#photos_id=15928645 and you may also enjoy reading "Sheba's Journal" at
www.focusonnewfoundland.com/articles.html
As you could probably glean from my earlier post, Sheba has been the absolute best dog ever, and she's indeed worth every single penny we'd invested into her. She had a pretty rocky start to life... due to her fast/excessive growth Sheba was unfortunately a prime candidate for Panosteitis, (or "Pano" for short) which is basically the equivalent of growing pains in teens. The long bones in the legs grow so quickly that they become quite inflamed and painful. They do eventually grow out of it, but as Sheba continued growing right up until her second birthday, the poor girl was crippled up for much of the first two years of her life. But she is finally finished growing, and is thus no longer experiencing any painful bouts of Pano, (after a total of 12 flare-ups that kept her out of commission for a total of 6 months out of her first 22 months of her life) and now just
loves to be outdoors running, jumping and playing at every opportunity! But she's definitely also a couch potato at heart, and her favourite place of all is when she is snuggled up tightly with us on the sofa.
Sheba is not our first purebred German Shepherd. 30 years ago we had another stunner named Chrissy; (yes, same name as our Shih Tzu!) not sure why it took us so long to return to this amazing breed, but thank goodness we did! We can't imagine how dull it would be without this gorgeous creature in our lives!! I often joke that an actual horse would have been much less costly to purchase... and with Sheba's immense proportions it really is similar to having an actual pony in the house, (after all, we
do call her "Trigger" at times!) but thankfully she is always so perfectly behaved. Sheba has always resembled her Dad, but wow, once she matured she became a
carbon copy of her Dad... as in
identical... except Sheba is larger!
*EDIT* Hey, I just realized that at the beginning, the breeder had sent us tons of mobile pics of Sheba, taken from 4 to 8 weeks old, so I will attach a few of them here. They're not exactly "National Geographic" quality, but should give you an idea of just how cute she was as a baby!
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