Why I Started This Blog - My Journey With German Shepherds

 I... love... dogs. Just about all dogs. We always had dogs, growing up, and I am currently fostering four of the sweetest German Shepherds on the Planet. 

I have always had a thing for German Shepherds. Even before I had one, I knew there was something special about the breed, that tugged at my heartstrings. 

My first introduction to Shepherds was when I was in about the first grade, growing up in Kahalu'u, Hawaii. One day when I got on the school bus, I sat next to my classmate, Wailani Harbottle, whose family had recently gotten a young German Shepherd that she adored. But that morning, she was in tears. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me her parents were putting the dog to sleep that day.  

Wailani's eyes were puffy and red, and she was inconsolable. I asked why her dog was being put to sleep, and she told me it was because he'd bitten her in the face, but she knew it wasn't the dog's fault. He didn't mean to, it was an accident. She had grabbed his tail or something like that, and it triggered him to snap, but it was just a knee jerk reaction.... not enough to warrant putting the dog down. She begged her parents to let her keep him, but I guess they saw him as a liability and they had already made up their minds. 

It hurt my heart to see her in tears like that. I'd never had a German Shepherd, and didn't know much about the breed, but I couldn't help being curious about how much my friend loved this dog so deeply that she begged her parents to let it live, even though it had bitten her in the face. As we got older, in Elementary School, I would see that scar on Wailani's face as it healed, and it was always a reminder to me of that German Shepherd, and what a special dog it must have been, for her to love it that much, despite the fact that it had actually bitten her. I got to see first-hand that shepherds can be a very misunderstood breed. 

My paternal grandparents had a shepherd named Maya, and a little black poodle mix named Sambo. My sisters and I would sometimes spend the summer with my Dad at their house in Palo Alto, and I loved going for night walks with my Grandpa and the dogs. It was their nightly routine, and to this day, I love going on night walks with dogs, because it brings back those memories from my childhood. 

I didn't have a shepherd till my late teens, but we had other dogs. When I was really young, my Mom had a Chow named Pushka (though I was too young to remember her much). Then, an airline stewardess my Mom (a former stewardess herself) met, needed to rehome her Japanese Spaniel because it was lonely when she was away on flights for the airline. With 3 young, pet-loving girls in our family, she knew that we'd be able to give her dog lots of love and attention, so Mako became our dog. 

She was the only dog I have ever had, who wasn't spayed.  One day, my Mom met a woman who had a purebred Japanese Spaniel, and apparently they were breeders, and we decided to let them meet up, and Mako had puppies. It was the first and only time in my life that we've ever had an unspayed dog. One day I got a kitten named Pedro, and when he was really young, he used to nurse on Mako. I learned at a young age, how wonderful dogs are, with a capacity to take care of other animals in need. 

When I was in about the 5th or 6th grade, my Mom had a job working for the MTL bus company in Hawai'i (aka "Da Bus"), she found a male stray dog (a Rottweiler / Shepherd mix) tied to a pole. Nobody came back for the dog, so he became ours. My Dad named him Cyrus, and I called him "Cy." I used to draw lots of cartoon pictures of him in my journal - his signature feature being those cute little brown "eyebrows" Rottweilers have. 

Coco - the dog that changed my life

When I was about 17 or 18, I walked up our driveway (we lived at the bottom of a steep hill) to get the mail, there was a stray dog loose on the street. She looked like a Shepherd mix, with wiry, slightly curly hair (my Mom later determined she was likely part Airdale). I got the feeling she had been abandoned. She was highly energetic and spazzy and kept jumping up, wanting to play.  

I brought her to my Mom, and she was so sweet and friendly, we just kept her, and she turned out to be the best dog ever. We named her Coco, because we had a coconut tree and she loved to peel the coconuts that fell to the ground. She'd grip a small piece of the husk, tightly in her jaws, then shook her head furiously until the coconut went flying and she was left with a little strip of coconut husk in her mouth. Then she'd run over to the coconut and repeat the process over and over, until she'd stripped off the whole peel. It was adorable. 

Coco was the best dog, ever. I loved... that... dog... so.... much. She was loyal and sweet and funny and a great companion. I used to take her for really long walks, and took her to training classes at night.

When I was 19, I was really depressed. That was the year I took Accutane, which is known to cause depression, to the point where some people have even committed suicide. But Coco always a bright spot in my day, lifting me up whenever I was feeling sad.

Dog Therapy

I learned from Coco that dogs can be better than a therapist. Their warm and loving nature is so infectious, they can really warm your heart and make your world a much brighter place.

My second year out of high school was a rough year for me, because I felt directionless. All my friends were away in college, while I was working full time in a bindery, making $5 an hour (around minimum wage back then), so that I could pay for my own braces. 

Being raised by a single mother, we didn't have a lot of extra money for things that weren't really necessary. And I knew braces weren't in this category. Throughout intermediate school and high school, my teeth got more and more crooked, and I needed braces, but I didn't dare to ask my Mom if I could get them, because I knew they cost thousands of dollars, and I didn't want to cause her any more stress than she already had. My dermatologist was already costing her a small fortune (even though he didn't do much to fix my acne issues). 

When I was 19, I took an acne drug called Accutane, for acne, because I had a pretty severe case of it. My dermatologist had told me diet had nothing to do with acne (he either lied or was grossly misinformed) and I was working at a Frozen Yogurt Store called Penguin's Place in the Kane'ohe Shopping Center. I was eating sooo much yogurt, not realizing it was causing my skin to break out. 

It blows my mind to think of how many times I went to see a doctor to fix some kind of health issue that was simply being caused by what I was (or wasn't) putting into my mouth. I really learned the powers of natural medicine, and as I learned more and more about different remedies that worked really well for me, it made me want to share my findings with other people. I also learned a lot of different things that have worked really well for my pets, so I like to share those tips and tricks, too. 

I created several health blogs to share what I'd learned. You can see a blog I made to share some of the best Health Secrets I've learned, by clicking HERE. I created a blog for people who are involved in cat rescue (or just taking care of a cat), to share some of the best tips I've found, to help me with my cats over the years. And you can see a blog I made to help bay area dogs get adopted, HERE. Ironically, the last post I did was for a dog that is NOT in the bay area. My sister has been looking after a dog that really needs a home, and she's willing to pay to ship him to California, if anyone is interested : ). 

I will always be so grateful to Coco, for getting me through such a difficult time in my life. When she passed away in 1999, I cried for weeks. My sisters cried. My Mom cried. We didn't even cry as much when my Grandma passed away, a few months beforehand, and we loved our grandma! But there was just something about Coco that was just like... the purest form of love and joy and loyalty, all wrapped up into one big, sweet, funny, energetic fuzzball. 

I was especially heartbroken because I was living in California at the time she got sick and my Mom knew it was time to put her to sleep, and I couldn't afford to go back home and visit her one last time. 

Not being able to say goodbye to Coco, the dog I'd spent so much time with, and put through dog training classes, left a permanent scar on my heart. Whenever I would see German Shepherds, I'd want to run over and hug them. I missed her so much. It was like she left this VOID that could never be filled. 

How I finally got to have dogs again

For the first 30 years I lived in California, I couldn't have dogs because I was renting and they were too expensive. The deposits (and extra monthly rent) you have to pay, to have a dog when you're renting, is insane. 

Because I couldn't afford a dog, I would literally walk my friends and neighbors' dogs, for FREE. I loved and missed having dogs so much. I used to walk my friend Misty's dog, Mars, in San Francisco, the first year I lived in the city. I ended up getting a cat named Setzer, who was brought to me and my friends at the house we lived at in San Francisco. Steve found this sweet young cat wandering around Baker Beach in San Francisco, after some people had apparently lost him during a family trip where they decided to bring him along. He got out, they looked all over for him, and it was only after they'd left that Steve found him wandering around the parking lot and learned about his prior owners when he talked to a security guard in the area. The owners took off without leaving a phone number, and there was no internet back then, to try to find his owners. So, we all took care of Setzer, until the house was sold and I ended up taking Setzer into my studio to live with me for a few years until we moved to Redwood City in 2002. 

I ended up moving after my Dad passed away in 2001, just a few months after my Grandpa (his Dad) died. My Grandma passed just a year and a half before. And all this was shortly after 9/11. I had been in the middle of writing a book I was really excited about, and now I was completely overwhelmed and depressed. 

I knew I would need to take care of my Dad's 18 year old cat, Annie. But she and Setzer didn't get along. I lived in a studio and couldn't figure out how I was going to be able to take care of both cats.

My dad's best friend (and former girlfriend) was named Jeanne, and she had a soft spot for animals. She lived on the peninsula, like my Dad, and was very kindly helping to take care of Annie, giving her IV fluids to help her kidneys. Jeanne was often at my Dad/Grandparents house, caring for Annie, while me and my sisters were sorting through my Dad and Grandparents' belongings before their house was put on the market. 

I was so stressed out, trying to figure out how I was going to live in my studio AND take care of both cats (while keeping them separated) and having no idea what I was going to do with all my Dad's and Grandparents' stuff. 

Jeanne could see I was struggling and needed help, so she very kindly and generously invited me to live in one of her rental properties in early 2002. She actually let me stay for FREE for the first few months, and then she let me pay cheap rent for many years. 

Neither of us expected me to stay as long as I did. I had loved San Francisco so much, I thought I would move back, but I ended up falling in love with Jeanne's place. The weather was awesome, and I had a lot more space and was a lot less stressful than living in San Francisco. My truck used to get broken into all the time in the city, but that didn't happen in the suburban neighborhood I was now at. I was also able to do a lot of gardening, which was extremely therapeutic after losing my Dad and Grandparents in the short span of just a few years. 

When I first moved to the property I noticed one of my neighbors had two dogs, Ronny and Savannah, who weren't being walked. These two dogs were owned by a Fedex pilot named Nayan, who was usually gone during the day. He later told me he got the dogs after his beloved female dog, who was like his best friend, got hit by a car on the very day he moved into his place. It was a heartbreaking story. I think he got the dogs as a way to try to recover from the pain he was feeling after that loss.

Anyway, Nayan had just moved in his younger girlfriend who stayed at home all day but never walked the dogs at all. For whatever reason she kept a leash on Savannah, who kept getting tangled up in some very invasive volunteer trees just over their side of the fence. Those trees were a species called "Tree of Heaven"... but they're more like tree of hell). As a side note, those trees turned out to be a nightmare. I had asked Nayan's landlord at the time, Adrian, to cut them down, but she didn't, they continued to grow and shade the whole property. 

One day, Adrian hired a crew of what looked like 10 people, to cut down these trees that had grow so big, the trunk was about 2 feet in diameter.  The landlady informed me and Jeanne that we legally had to pay half, because the trees were NOW on our side, too. I reminded her of how I'd asked her to cut down those trees many years ago, but Adrian was a compulsive liar who denied the whole thing. I couldn't believe it. I could seriously write a book about all the crazy and unjust things I've seen, since moving to this street, but I stick around because I love the weather, and thank God that old landlady is long gone (the new landlord is super nice). 

Anyway, sorry I digress... back to the dogs next door...

My first introduction to the dogs, Ronny and Savannah, was when I heard the female, Savannah, whimpering on the other side of the fence. I peeked through the boards and I could see this beautiful large, long-haired black dog, completely tangled up in her leash that was wrapped all the way around the tree next door. Argh. For whatever reason, Ronny (an energtic tan shepherd mix) never seemed to get tangled up, but with Savannah, it happened over and over agin. 

So I devised a plan to go over and befriend the neighbors and see if they might let me walk their dogs. I bought a huge tub of dog food that came in a plastic container, and I told them I really just wanted the container, so I was giving them the dog food for free. I was like, hey, I really love dogs, so, if you ever want me to walk them, I'd be happy to! They must have thought I was nuts, but they let me walk the dogs, and I'd take them in my Mustang convertible to the dog park. It was so much fun!

One day in 2003, Jeanne showed up with some kittens from a litter that was born on her other property. There were lots of unspayed cats and kittens running around, breeding, and Jeanne didn't know anything about how to get them fixed. 

I wasn't exactly an expert either, but I felt like I needed to step in and figure things out, because I couldn't bear the thought of all these cats and kittens being neglected and starving, getting in fights, getting hit by cars, not having homes, etc..

The San Francisco Bay Area Peninsula is a really nice climate that is like the perfect breeding ground for cats and kittens. When I'd lived in San Francisco the previous 11 years, I hadn't seen a lot of stray animals, but soon after I moved south, it was like I was in a new world with various urgent Suburban Cat Situations that kept cropping up.

I've fostered, rescued and spayed dozens of cats, and at one point had 2 litters of cats and kittens in my house (back in the early days).  I also made a cat rescue blog to share information about how to keep their cats healthy, and I wanted to share resources for spay and neuter clinics. 

Sometimes I would joke that I was a Dog Person trapped in the Life of a Cat person.  I wasn't really a cat person till I started doing all that fostering, and now I love cats just as much as I love dogs. I still have a cat, but I am finally able to have dogs. And you could say I'm making up for lost time, since now I have FOUR shepherds!

For the first 2 decades, living in Redwood City. I lived vicariously through other dog people. I got my "dog fix" by doing a good amount of dog photography. I got to be the Pet Photographer at a few "Santa Claws" photo events at Petsmart.  And when I'd spend time gardening in the front yard, I'd get to see plenty of the neighbors' dogs like my friend Judy's dog, Ranger, my friend Laurie's dogs, Daisy and Jesse, and various other pups that'd walk by on a regular basis.  

I also did a lot of dogsitting for my friend Todd, who had two awesome and beautiful German Shepherds named Parker and Nikki. I freekin loved those dogs so much. I'd stay with them when Todd needed a dogsitter over the weekend when he'd go out of town. Those dogs would sleep on the bed with me. I took them to the park and on hikes, and they felt like my kids. 

I'm also like a dog magnet. If there is a stray dog somewhere in the vicinity, it will find a way to run past me and suck me into it's emergency vortex. If there's a dog running on the freeway, I am that person who'll pull over and stop traffic in order to make sure the dog is safe. For those of you who actually read this far into this post, I bet you are that kind of person, too! (High five).

I spent so much time and energy doing different types of pet rescue when I moved down the peninsula. Sometimes it could be overwhelming and frustrating, because I really needed to be doing other things, like finishing the book I'd been working on since 1999. But I don't regret having spent all that time helping animals because I feel like it made me a better person.

I will always be super grateful to Jeanne, who was a huge influence on me. It's because of her kindness and generosity that I was able to do as much health research, writing and blogging as I did, since I've been living here. 

Jeanne passed away very unexpectedly in 2018, after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I later found out the property she lived at, in Mountain View, was a Superfund site that was so toxic, the empoloyees who worked at google across the street weren't allowed to work on the first floor if they were pregnant women. 

I was a basketcase after Jeanne died. My heart was broken, because she was like a mentor to me and I'd always wanted to finish the book I'd started in when I first moved in, and dedicate it to her. I had a huge amount of Survivor's guilt, and still do. I also saw many more deaths during the Covid pandemic. My husband died very suddenly and unexpectedly (it felt more like a murder by the medical mafia, and could write a whole book about it). My best friend from Childhood, Fiona, passed away, as did a really good musician friend of mine. 

Tragedy struck again on September 8th, 2022, on the day I came back from visiting my Mom back home in Hawaii. What was supposed to be a week-long trip turned into about a month. My friend Rob had been staying at my place and taking care of my cats, as he had done many times before, so I trusted him.

On the day I returned, Northern California was in the middle of a heatwave. Rob had fed the cats in the morning, then left for the rest of the day. Usually, he leaves the door open, so the cats can go in and out, but since he was going to San Jose to meet up with a friend at the Library, and he knew he wouldn't be home till the evening (because he was picking me up at the San Jose airport), he decided to close the door to my apartment. Raccoons and possums have a tendency to come into my place and make themselves at home, and then poop all over my place. 

My 18 year old cat Bert was left outside all day while I was on the plane, and he didn't have ability to get back inside. Rob didn't think it was a big deal, because he had water, but he didn't think about the fact that Bert was elderly and frail and had been battling cancer for years. I didn't know that Bert had been left outside with the door closed, until I got home. 

When I was at baggage claim, I discovered that the airline had lost my luggage. Trying to sort out all the details of what happened took an extra hour and a half, so by the time I got home, it was well past dark. I told Rob on the drive home how much I was looking forward to seeing Bert. He was like my baby. I'd bottle fed him since he was just a few weeks old, and I'd just watched him on my Google Nest camera that morning. Now he was a little old man, who was often incontinent, but I still loved him as if he was my child. 

When I got home, I called for Bert, but he didn't show up. I looked all over for him, but he was nowhere to be found. I searched everywhere. I looked in the crawlspace under the house, in my neighbors' yards. I knocked on doors. Bert had just vanished into thin air, and I never did find him. The hole in my heart was so enormous and it's still there to this day. I have tears in my eyes as I write this. I now know what it feels like to be a parent whose child goes missing, and you never see them again. 

I always try to look for the slightest bit of good that may be able to come out the worst tragedies in life. When you don't, that tragedy becomes a TOTAL waste. I had to remind myself that the whole reason I got Bert in the first place was because I was trying to turn a horrible experience into something good.

Back in 2004, my then-roommate/ex-boyfriend Christian had a cat named Cookie, who got hit by a car, and she died that night. It was devastating and traumatizing how it all went down. Christian found her on the side of the house and her head was jerking around in a weird way. We took her to an emergency vet clinic that was severely understaffed and it took forever for the vet to actually see her. When he finally did see her, he looked at the Xrays and suddenly realized she'd been hit by a car. He used this thing that looked like a ventilator for cats, and she died in a horribly traumatic way, with a look of shock and horror on her face. It may have been the most traumatizing thing I'd ever seen up till that point in my life, including the death of my own father. 

Christian and I were both extremely depressed after that. But I was determined to try to find SOME kind of good from that awful situation. So, I suggested to Christian that we go to Jeanne's place and rescue some of the cats and kittens at Jeanne's place in mountain view, and we would be doing it in Cookie's honor. I don't think we would have done that, when we did, if it hadn't been for what happened with Cookie.

When we got to the property, we found several kittens running around, which we planned to trap with a large raccoon trap I'd borrowed from a friend who did cat rescue. But Christian ended up finding a litter of kittens behind a board that was propped up against a shed in Jeanne's back yard. I don't think I would have seen it myself. There were six kittens. We put the kitties in the trap, and eventually caught the Mom, and brought them all to my house. That was the start of my journey into Cat Rescue, and it was a very rewarding experience. I love cats just as much as I love dogs, now, and for the last few decades I was the Crazy Cat Lady on my block. 

But I made the overnight transition to Crazy Dog Lady, about a month and a half after Bert went missing.  One evening in late September of 2022, I was on Facebook and saw a post by my friend Karen, who lived a few blocks away from me. Karen and I became friends back in 2017, when a woman named Colleen on NextDoor had done a post about several dogs that were about to be euthanized. I saw this one dog that had the saddests eyes, and I couldn't get her out of my mind. I said I'd be willing to walk her and do the marketing for her to find a good home, if someone else could foster her. That's when Karen (a shepherd owner) stepped up, and we worked together to care for this sweet dog (whom I renamed Georgia) until we found her a great home. 

So, fast forward to 2022, and I'm looking at the post on Karen's page, which showed some german shepherds that were going to be put to sleep the next day, if no one stepped up to rescue them. I couldn't believe my eyes. I had never seen so many shepherds on the chopping block at once, and they had even more than that, that just weren't being advertised yet. 

Call it a mid life crisis, or maybe it was because I was still looking for a way to heal from the pain of losing Bert, but whatever the case, I could not get these shepherds out of my mind. I contacted the person who'd done the facebook post about them, and I also filled out adoption forms directly through the shelter, saying I would take any of the shepherds that were on the chopping block list, that didn't get adopted by the time we arrived. 

I told Sean I needed to drive down to Southern California the next day, with the van, to check on some German Shepherds.When you need to tell your significant other you're about to do something that's bat shit crazy, it can be best to give them smaller chunks of information to digest, rather than the whole shabang at once. 

I told him I wanted to look at TWO german shepherds, but honestly, since I had a van, I knew I was going to end up taking as many as they'd let me drive away with. Although I' not rich myself, I do live in an area with lots of rich people in it, and a lot of people in Northern California tend to treat their pets like many parents treat their kids. 

So I figured it'd be easy to get them all homes. I'd had really great luck with finding homes for animals in the past, so how hard could it be, for German Shepherds? They're SUCH great dogs! With all the resources that are available nowadays, like Petfinder, Craigslist, NextDoor and Facebook, I figured I'd have them all great homes within a week or so. A month, max!

I had to fanagle a few things, but ultimately, we were able to take 4 dogs (2 each) through 2 different rescue channels, and I've been able to keep them at my place because I live in a duplex, and you're allowed to have 2 dogs per property. They are the most expensive tenants ever, but they make my heart feel extremely full, in a way I can't quite describe. 

I originally planned to foster them through GSRNC (German Shepherd Rescue of Northern California). But two of the shepherds (Poppy and Kali) had behavoiral issues. I knew there would be issues with Poppy, who was kind of neurotic and barked a lot. She'd spin in circles at the sound of loud noises like a vacuum cleaner, and she is absolutely terrified of fireworks. I get the feeling she was left outside during some kind of firework free-for-all, because she starts shaking uncontrollably at the sound of the.  It was obvious she was abused, by the way she'd cower if I moved my hands too quickly, like she thought I was going to hit her. 

I knew Kali was a little crazy and possessive, but I still thoguht she'd pass the evaluation by GSRNC. Kali was doing great, up until the point where the volunteer, Doug, tried to take a toy away from her, and she growled a little bit, which surprised both of us. He told me that her "resource guarding" was a bit of a red flag. Greeeeat. So much for my vision of being able to find all the dogs great homes in a week!

I knew it would be really easy to find a home for Titus and Shelby. They are suuuch great dogs. Titus is everyone's favorite. He's smarter than all the other dogs put together. 

And Shelby is sooo special and sweet, I could see it the second she walked into the meet and greet room at the shelter. Little girls all want to pet her on walks. I think she's half shepherd, half Golden Retriever. She wags her tail like a goldie, and is super sweet with people and other dogs. She is the only one of my fosters whom I would trust COMPLETELY around my cat Milo. This dog doesn't seem to have a single mean bone in her whole body. 

I think of Shelby as a "million dollar dog" because sometimes I get this vision of some little girl going up to Auzu in a park and falling in love with her, and the Dad is some rich investor in the area, and he asks if I'd be interested in letting me adopt her for his daughter. I'd explain that I'd have a hard time letting go of her, because she's become very bonded with Poppy (she's like her emotional support dog, now). The Dad would then say, "Well, would you take $10,000 for her?" And I'd say, sorry, I dont think so. He'd say, "How about $100,000? And I'd still have to say no. And then he'd go all the way up to a million dollars, and I'd tell him I'd have to think about it : D. 

I realize I can't stay here at this property, unrented, the way things are now, so I do plan on either finding great homes for them, OR, my other plan is to move them all to a large property on the big island, and create a trail around the perimeter so we can take them mushing every day. 

 

I still have all of the dogs, a year and a half later. I never would have been able to save these dogs if it weren't for the fact that Jeanne left me the property when she passed in 2018. It was an incredibly generous gift, and I vowed to somehow be able to do something with the property that would make her proud.

It was a little frightening that the property had a fairly large balloon mortgage on it that I couldn't afford to pay off, so I had to take 2 hard money loans on the property in order to keep it. So yeah, it ended up costing me a good amount of money to keep this place, but the things I was able to do over the last few years were invaluable, and I'll always be grateful to her. 

If it wasn't for Jeanne, I wouldn't have had the funds to be able to drive to Southern California and rescue the German Shepherds that I have now. As everyone who has a shepherd knows, they are NOT cheap dogs to care for! I am also grateful to my boyfriend Sean, whom I reunited with after my husband Jack passed away. Sean was my boyfriend in Hawaii when I was 20, before I moved to California.  He helped me with the shepherd rescue and has also spent a lot of time with the dogs (and money, too). 

One day I would love to convert Jeanne's property into a healing center, for people and their pets to experience the different types of healing equipment that I was able to discover through the research I was able to do while I lived here. I am also grateful to my late husband, Jack, and Sean, who helped to pay the bills to keep the lights on while I did all the research that I did. 

So, if you happen to read anything that is valuable on this blog, please know that there were a lot of people (and animals) involved in me getting to learn what I did. Time is money, and it costs a LOT of money to live on the outskirts of Silicon Valley. This means every hour I spent researching was an hour I spent NOT working at a day job, and going further into debt. But that research turned out to be invaluable, and I knew I'd be sharing what I'd learned, with lots of people in the future. 

If there is such a thing as heaven (and I get to go there), I hope I get to see Jeanne, and Jack, and my Dad, my Grandparents, and all my rescue animals. I would be overjoyed to see Coco again. She was the best dog ever, and she was the inspiration behind this website. She's the reason I am passionate about helping as many shepherds (and their owners) as possible.

We're all here to help each other. I got a lot of help from some really amazing people (and pets) along the way, so now, it's my turn to pay it forward.  I hope you can find some useful information on this site, and that it will help your dogs to live longer and healthier lives. 

Laura