Schultzy

Schultzy is my thirteen year old German Shepherd Dog (GSD)- I'm leaving the dog because on a lot of official sites discussing German Shepherds they add dog at the end and I think it's funny and wonder why the need to clarify . . .  in case we get confused with other German Shepherd species? I have never seen a Poodle called a Poodle Dog it always just seems to be assumed.

Anyway . . .  Last vet visit she was around 80 lbs. Which means thirteen short years ago I brought home a 10 lb wrecking ball and she has mutated to 8x that size. And by wrecking ball . .. . I mean WRECKING BALL!

Here she is as a young dog probably close to two years old. I know she is very young because she hadn't grown into her tail yet. For some reason though I don't have any baby baby pictures of her.

Schultzy at Montauk enjoying the ocean

Shortly after bringing her home Schultzy ate a brand new linoleum floor. A trainer we had hired for some behavior classes told us the unsurprising news that she had a very powerful jaw. We had already learned that several times. The dog can chew, bite, and eat through anything she wants. Add that on top of the fact that she is high anxiety (including separation anxiety) and literally too smart for her own good.

For the most part her destructiveness, we realize, was our fault. She was left alone too long and got bored. When she got bored she got anxious; when she got anxious floors got eaten. It's a circle. Besides the floor her greatest act of destruction was my laundry room door. The previous owners had a cat door into the laundry room which is where I assume they kept the litter box... that is the only reason I can think of for having a cat door there. At first she would stick her nose out of the cat door (that is all that would fit) and we thought it was adorable.

Hey I can't fit!

But then she realized with a little work she could fix her door.

All better!

Car trip!

That being said we call her the Baby and constantly tell her she is the best "bad dog" ever!  She knows her commands and follows them when she chooses- thankfully it is most the time. And there are definitely times where we want to kill her. But then you look at her loving face and brown eyes and realize all she wants is our attention and to be with us doing something. Well, now that she is thirteen she just wants to be with us at our feet sleeping but up until eleven she wanted to do something! Constantly! I remember when she was nine at one of her last vet visits in NY the vet said if not for the fact they had been seeing her since she was a puppy they wouldn't believe her age. She acted more like two than nine.  I feel like we have finally entered the good dog phase. Sometimes she gets up slowly and her face has much more white in it than she once did but other than that I don't think anyone meeting her would guess her age.

Schultzy loves water in any form! Her favorite treat is ice! She gets excited whenever she hears the fridge ice maker and I am probably lucky she hasn't figured out how to dispense the ice herself.

A bowl of ice with frozen toys!

She also loves snow. 

Happy Baby!

Evil Baby!

And playing in water!

Baby in her pool.

In the ocean.

She has a favorite toy that she loves to chew on and brings everywhere with her. It is the first thing she grabs when it is time to go to bed. We call it her pacifier. A long time ago it was a smart toy that we would put treats into and as she chewed it the treats would fall out. It has been a long time since we actually used treats in it but she doesn't seem to mind. She loves it so much that we have bought them in bulk so that we have easy replacements for when one gets too chewed.

Baby and her pacifier

Look closely how she holds her pacifier with her paw. I love how she does this! She also sometimes balances the middle of the pacifier over her leg.

Holding tight.

And that's the Baby!

Then

Now