First Bath of '06

What's that you say? I need a bath? Now, why would I need a bath? I'm perfectly clean and smell just the way I'm supposed to - like a dog. Okay, so I smell like wet dog because it was raining earlier but who cares, right? Riiight? ... Mom? Mo-om!

Great. Now I'm all wet. Ha. Ha. Funny. Stop taking pictures already!

Now I'm all dry and fluffed. Bleh.

Rescue Me

From: Your local Cat and Dog Rescue
To: People "getting rid of" their animals

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Average Idiot,

We receive an extremely high volume of inquiries and requests to accept surrendered animals. To help us expedite your problem as quickly as possible, please observe the following guidelines:

1. Do not say that you are, "considering finding a good home," or, "feel you might be forced to," or, "really think it would be better if," you unloaded the poor beast. 95% of you already have your minds stone-cold made up that the animal will be out of your life by the weekend or holiday at the latest. Say so.

If you don't, I'm going to waste a lot of time giving you common-sense, easy solutions for very fixable problems, and you're going to waste a lot of time coming up with fanciful reasons why the solution couldn't possibly work for you. For instance, you say the cat claws the furniture, and I tell you about nail-clipping and scratching posts and aversion training, and then you go into a long harangue about how your husband won't let you put a scratching post in the family room, and your ADHD daughter cries if you use a squirt bottle on the cat, and your congenital thumb abnormalities prevent you from using nail scissors and etc., etc.

Just say you're getting rid of the cat.

2. Do not waste time trying to convince me how nice and humane you are. Your co-worker recommended that you contact me because I am nice to animals, not because I am nice to people, and I don't like people who "get rid of" their animals. "Get rid of," is my least favorite phrase in any language. I hope someone, "gets rid of" you someday.

I am an animal advocate, not a people therapist. After all, you can get counsellors, special teachers, doctors, social workers, etc., for your ADHD daughter. Your pet has only me, and people like me, to turn to in his or her need, and we are overworked, stressed-out, and demoralized.

So don't tell me this big long story about how, "We love this dog so much, and we even bought him a special bed that cost $50, and it is just killing us to part with him, but honestly, our maid is just awash in dog hair every time she cleans, and his breath sometimes just reeks of liver, so you can see how hard we've tried, and how dear he is to us, but we really just can't ... ."

You are not nice, and it is not killing you. It is, in all probability, literally killing your dog, but you're going to be just fine once the beast is out of your sight. Don't waste my time trying to make me like you or feel sorry for you in your plight.

3. Do not try to convince me that your pet is exceptional and deserves special treatment. I don't care if you taught him to sit. I don't care if she's a beautiful Persian. I have a waiting list of battered and/or whacked-out animals who really need help, and I have no room to shelter your pet because you decided you no longer have time for your 14-year-old Lab.

Do not send me long messages detailing how Fido just l-o-v-e-s blankies and carries his favorite blankie everywhere, and oh, when he gets all excited and happy, he spins around in circles, isn't that cute? He really is darling, so it wouldn't be any trouble at all for us to find him a good home. Listen, we can go down to the pound and count the darling, spinning, blankie-loving beasts on death row by the dozens, any day of the week.

And, honey, Fido is a six-year-old shepherd-mix weighing 75 pounds. I am not lying when I tell you big, older, mixed-breed, garden-variety dogs are almost always completely unadoptable, and I don't care if they can whistle Dixie or send smoke signals with their blankies.

What you don't realize, though you're trying to lie to me, you're actually telling the truth: Your pet is a special, wonderful, amazing creature. But this mean old world does not care. More importantly, you do not care, and I can't fix that problem. All I can do is grieve for all the exceptional animals who live short, brutal, loveless lives and die without anyone ever recognizing they were indeed very, very special.

4. Finally, just, for God' s sake, for the animal's sake, tell the truth, and the whole truth.

Do you think if you just mumble your cat is, "high-strung," I will say, "Okey-dokey! No problem!" and take it into foster care? No, I will start asking questions and uncover the truth, which is your cat has not used a litter box in the last six months. Do not tell me you "can't" crate your dog. I will ask what happens when you try to crate him, and you will either be forced to tell me the symptoms of full-blown, severe separation anxiety, or else you will resort to lying some more, wasting more time.

And, if you succeed in placing your pet in a shelter or foster care, do not tell yourself the biggest lie of all: "Those nice people will take him and find him a good home, and everything will be fine."

Those nice people will indeed give the animal every possible chance, but if we discover serious health or behavior problems, if we find that your misguided attempts to train or discipline him have driven him over the edge, we will do what you are too immoral and cowardly to do: We will hold the animal in our arms, telling him truthfully he is a good dog or cat, telling him truthfully we are sorry and we love him, while the vet ends his life.

How can we be so heartless as to kill your pet, you ask? Do not ever dare to judge us.

Reposted from the Shepherd Forum.

Abby's Fast Facts

General Information

Call Name: Abby

Breed: German Shepherd
Height: 23.8" at the withers
Weight: 65 lbs
Color: Black and Red, a variation of black and tan
Coat: Stock coat, sometimes called a "plush" coat
Date of Birth: 21 May 2003

Microchipped: Yes, with HomeAgain
Tattooed: Yes - GM705

Titles:
CGC (AKC Canine Good Citizen)
HIT (Herding Instinct Tested)
TDI (Therapy Dogs International)

Jobs:
2006 - 2008 Army Recruiting Mascot
2007 - 2009 Therapy Dog

Honors:
Take Your Dog to Work Day poster dog, 2007
Dogster World's Coolest Dog & Cat Show winner, 2008



Pedigree Information

Because Abby was adopted from a local kill shelter where she had been surrendered by her owner (who supposedly "could not handle her"), she did not originally come with any pedigree information. I was able to find out more about her based solely on her ear tattoo, which was done at a kennel in Virginia that imports dogs from Germany and breeds dogs for sport and working use.

This is Abby's pedigree.

The kennel owner told me that Abby is out of a litter that was bred by a third person who had purchased one of his females, Beatae von den Blauen Bergen, and a male that was imported from Germany, SG Kuran vom Fiemereck. The ear tattoos on the litter were done at Von den Blauen Bergen kennels. However, it appears that the pups were not actually registered with the AKC, or at least the female pups were not (or so says the AKC in response to my inquiry, though they were less than helpful in answering my questions!).

SG Kuran vom Fiemereck pedigree
Beatae von den Blauen Bergen pedigree



Additional Information

Abby currently lives in Southern Virginia.

Abby is a sweet-tempered dog who enjoys it when people pay attention to her. She is wonderful with all kinds of people, including young children, and will patiently stand still to be petted. The only thing she doesn't like, as far as people are concerned, is to be hugged. She'll back out of a hug, and we usually ask people not to do that, anyway, because it's pretty unnatural for a dog to enjoy hugs from complete strangers (or even their own families).

She does well with most dogs, particularly dogs that are smaller than she is. Maybe that has to do with the fact that we also have three cats and they definitely hold their own around the house. She does not particularly like hyper young dogs, or dogs, especially large ones, that are not under their owners' control and get into "her" space. (I don't usually like to put up with this either.)

Abby is relatively mellow, especially around her house, but she can be quite the bouncy little ball of energy outdoors. During the day she mostly enjoys loafing on her dog bed, the couch, or in her crate. She enjoys to run and hike, and when we're out in an area where she can be off-leash, she uses that chance to stretch out her legs. She's been known to trot for several hours straight at the park and to run circles around us when we're hiking the deserted trails on base. (On regular trails, she's not allowed to do that since we share the trails with many other people.)

She loves to play a good came of "catch me" with humans, which is more about the joy of chasing someone who is running than anything else. She will "tag" them by touching them with her nose and then running off in the opposite direction, although she's been known to "tag" by giving a nip with her teeth, too, which is the herding instinct in her. Abby herds and will try to get dogs and people into one spot if left to it. She has also been started on herding sheep to use that instinct in a more appropriate manner.

She is very, very vocal and has a wide range of moans, groans, whines, whimpers, and barks. She is not, however, a barker with the exception of her high-pitched play bark that sounds a lot like a Chihuahua. I've only heard a deep warning bark from her a handful of times, but I have no doubt that she can be quite scary if the situation calls for it.

Abby does Washington

In front of the Department of Energy's Forrestal Building.

On the National Mall, with the Washington Monument in the background.

At the Korean War Monument.

At the Vietnam Women's Monument.

At the Vietnam Women's Monument.

In front of the Smithsonian Institute's gate.

Distant Relatives

History isn't always about important people and big events, and since this blog is all about dogs, I give you a little bit of random history about some dogs you may not know a whole lot about - Hitler's dogs.

Adolf Hitler, as most people are aware, owned a German Shepherd Dog named Blondi whom he poisoned using a cyanide pill just prior to using the same on himself inside his bunker in Berlin as the city was being taken by Russian troops in April of 1945.

What a lot of people don't know is that Blondi wasn't Hitler's only German Shepherd. Hitler, the dictator, one of the most evil men in history, was a dog lover. He liked most breeds with the exceptions of Boxers and small lapdogs. It's said that he hated cats, but he was also allergic of them, so one can only speculate whether he just didn't like cats, or whether he didn't like them because they made him sick.

Hitler's first dog was a bull terrier named Fuchsl (meaning, "little fox" - sometimes referred to in historical literature as Foxl, a sort of Anglicized form of the name) whom he adopted in the trenches of France while serving as a soldier in World War I. Some historians write that the dog had been the mascot of an enemy unit and had "escaped" toward German lines during a shelling or bombardment, though there seems to be no proof to support these statements. What is documented, however, is that Fuchsl at some point "vanished", and it was believed he had been stolen. (Dr. Boria Sax, "Animals in the Third Reich", here.)

Photo of Hitler with Fuchsl in WWI.

Some time after World War I, while Hitler lived at his apartment in Munich, at Prinzregentenstrasse 16, the first German Shepherd dog enters the scene in form of Blonda.

And no, Blonda isn't a typo.

Blonda was a purebred German Shepherd dog, described to be "from the good lines of the time" by historians. She was born in 1926 from Ally von der Grottenau and Armin von Ridekenburg, both dogs about whom little is known nowadays. However, the lines of the grandsire of Armin von Riedekenburg, Junker von Nassau, still exists today.

Blonda, however, is not the same as the Blondi we see in most of the photos and keep hearing about. As a matter of fact, this Blonda most likely isn't even the same Blonda that Hitler had in the early 1930's.

As far as I was able to piece together from various historical sources, there was a second Blonda, who was a daughter of his original Blonda. Sources pointed out that Hitler's original Blonda, born in 1926, was bred to a German Shepherd named Muckl von der Korbinianslinde and had a litter of five puppies. The names of those puppies vary depending on the source, but are supposed to have been Astra, Blonda, Kora, Treu and Wolf. Some people say that Muckl (sometimes referred to as "Muck", depending on the source) also belonged to Hitler.

Hitler and Blonda.

This photo shows the second Blonda in the 1930's. It was cropped from a photo postcard showing Hitler seated, feeding her a treat. The odd stripe on her side is from a leather dog harness that seems to have been edited out of this photo, although it can be seen in some of the other photos of Blonda. The stripe is not part of her natural coloration.

In the photos below we see Hitler's Blondi, who is the dog most talked about and most pictured by historians.

Hitler with the sable Blondi at the Berghof.

Blondi was supposedly given as a gift to Hitler by Martin Bormann in 1941, at which point both of the original Blondas may have passed already, or the original Blonda may have been "retired" to Hitler's kennels at the Berghof.

If you compare the two photos - the tall skinny sable Blondi and the shorter and much fatter Blonda, it's obvious that they're not the same dog, even if you're not a dog expert. In addition, Goebbels writes in his diary in 1942 that Hitler was "playing with his young German Shepherd dog". (Though that note of Goebbels' may also be about another German Shepherd named Bella.)

Hitler's Blondi was, by all means, a spoiled rotten dog. She had her very own caretaker, military dog handler Feldwebel (Sergeant) Fritz Tornow, who took care of her training, as well as most of her daily care. Not only that, but when Blondi got sick one time, she was fed a special diet of lean raw meat and eggs, as Hitler's former butler, Heinz Linge, recounts in "The Hitler Book". Blondi also didn't live in a kennel outside like regular military (and privately owned) dogs in the Third Reich - she had a large wooden box in Hitler's room, slept at the foot of his bed most of the time, and was allowed in the sleeping compartment of his special train.

In May of 1942, Hitler acquired another German Shepherd, a female named Bella, from a postal official in Ingolstadt, to "keep his Blondi company". (See David Irving, "Hitler's War", here.) Hitler probably didn't consider that two grown, intact females hardly ever get along. But that's not why Bella didn't get to be his dog for long - it was the fact that she liked to get up at nine o'clock each morning and then proceeded to jump on Hitler's bed and paw him playfully that led to her being sent away, since Hitler liked to stay up most of the night to catch up on his reading.

I don't know what happened to Bella, though she was probably kept at the Berghof. As I mentioned previously, Hitler had a kennel facility at his Berghof home to which the original Blonda may have been retired and to which Bella was probably "retired" after she did not work out as a companion.

Hitler's kennels at Berghof are mentioned in an article that was published in the British "Homes and Gardens" magazine in 1938 which spoke highly of the "model kennels" where he "breeds magnificent Alsatians" that are "given the run of the house". The photo of the black dog below is from that article, where it is captioned as "The Fuehrer in the garden, with one of his pedigreed Alsatians beside him." Some source the kennel name as being "von Wachenfeld" since the Berghof was also named "Haus Wachenfeld".

In addition to the article, there is also film footage of German Shepherd puppies running around at the Berghof, which are seen below in period color footage. The footage is taken from the documentary, "Hitler's Private World Revealed".

Litter of German Shepherd puppies.
Second picture shows puppies with Eva Braun's dog.

Blondi wasn't the only companion dog in the Hitler household, either - Hitler's girlfriend, Eva Braun, also had two dogs. To be precise, she had two black Scottish Terriers named Negus and Stasi. Hitler didn't like lap dogs in general and Scotch Terriers in particular, generally referring to Eva's dogs as Handfeger - "hand brushes" - and warned his photographers that no images of the two were to be published. Eva, in turn, wasn't exactly fond of Blondi and liked to kick her when Hitler wasn't looking, according to Hitler's Secretary, Traudl Junge.

Eva with one of her dogs, Hitler with Blondi.

Fortunately, Blondi seems to have been a wonderful example of her breed and not the kind of vicious attack dog that many German Shepherds are made out to be nowadays (particularly when people talk about German Shepherds in that time period, being used as guard dogs), and she was never aggressive.

The children of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels who adored her and loved to have her as a playmate. The Goebbels children - Helga, Hilde, Helmut, Hedda, Holde, and Heide - were between the ages of 4 and 12 by the time their parents killed them in spring of 1945, so they were all still fairly small when they played with Blondi.

In fall of 1944, Hitler had some special plans for Blondi - he planned to breed her to a suitable male from equally good lines as her own. That suitable male was Harrass, a purebred German Shepherd who belonged to Professor Gerdy Troost.

Gerdy Troost was another woman we don't hear or read about much in history. She was the wife - and after 1934 the widow - of the architect Ludwig Troost, who had been one of Hitler's favorite architects. Even after his death, Gerdy remained close friends with Hitler and many others of the Nazi party bigwigs, for whom she did extensive interior design work.

But back to the story.

In spring of 1943, Gerdy Troost was in search of a German Shepherd dog of her own after being encouraged by Hitler to get one. He even gave her a book on raising and training dogs written by the "father" of the German Shepherd breed, Rittmeister (Cavalry Captain) Max von Stephanitz. It was Martin Bormann who eventually arranged for her to meet two dogs at her Munich apartment, out of whom she chose Harrass.

Hitler requested whether he could breed Blondi to Harrass, which they eventually did.

However, there is some discussion as to whether the litter of puppies Blondi had in the Berlin bunker were those of Harrass, or whether they were from a different sire altogether. It is suggested that Hitler tried to breed Blondi to Harrass in fall of 1944 with no results, and then bred her to the dog of Alfred Rosenberg in 1945, which resulted in the April 4 litter born at the bunker.

There are two questions remaining - did Blondi ever have a litter of puppies? And if so, what happened to them?

Either way, Blondi was bred and had puppies on April 4, 1945 in the bunker in Berlin where Hitler, his staff, and the Goebbels family were staying as the Russians neared town. Hitler had a box for Blondi and her puppies in the bedroom, though most of the time they had free run of one of the bunker's bathrooms. The first male puppy of the litter was named Wolf, and some witnesses say that Hitler would be found carrying and petting the puppy frequently during those last days.

At one point, Eva Braun wrote her sister Gretel a letter, sending along a photograph of Blondi nursing her puppies. The letter told her sister that the puppy that was marked in the picture was the one she (Eva) picked out for her (Gretel).

Picture was posted on Axis History Forum.

It's from one of Nerin E. Gun's books about Hitler and Eva Braun.

On April 30th (April 29th, in some sources), Hitler had Blondi poisoned by Dr. Haase, one of his physicians, to test whether the cyanide pills supplied by another physician, Dr. Stumpfegger, were working, and afterwards, her puppies were reportedly taken to the courtyard by Fritz Tornow, the dog handler, and shot.

Russian troops later recovered Blondi's body as well as that of one puppy (most likely Wolf) when they searched the area, but never made a mention of any other pups in their records, so we don't know for sure what happened to them.

But... even though this litter was born in April 1945, there’s mention of Blondi with puppies in October of 1944. This begs for the question to be asked whether Blondi actually had two litters, or whether maybe Bella had a litter that was misidentified by sources as Blondi's litter. Unfortunately, I haven't found any further research on that yet.

Below are two photos of other dogs at the Berghof with Hitler. These should illustrate that Hitler did not in fact just have Blondi, but a whole bunch of German Shepherds at his Berghof home. Unfortunately, it seems that many historical sources automatically label a German Shepherd pictured with Hitler as Blondi, even though it's impossible for the young sable Blondi to be the amazing color-changing dog and turn into all of these other dogs. Even someone with no dog knowledge can tell that the dogs pictured below look nothing like the Blondi pictured above.

Odor Remover

I got this recipe from the German Shepherd forum and I can tell you for a fact that this stuff absolutely works at getting any smell out of carpeting. Probably upholstery, too, but I haven't tried that yet. I can't promise that it won't discolor any fabrics but it didn't damage our carpeting so I would say that it's safe.

You need the following:

1 small spray bottle
8 ounces of Hydrogen Peroxide
3 tablespoons of baking soda
3 drops of liquid dish soap

Mix the ingredients together carefully. It's easier to mix them in a small pitcher, measuring cup, or bowl instead of the spray bottle. You'll want to be careful since it to foam.

After mixing, pour it into the spray bottle and use it on the smelly stain you need to get rid of. Just spray it on - don't scrub it. After 24 hours, vacuum over the spot, and the smell should be gone. Repeat as necessary for very stubborn odors, like cat pee.

This also works great on things other than carpeting that you can't put into the washing machine: dog beds, camouflage nets, and the like, to get rid of odors. And it's safe for use around pets and children. I've heard of good results using this on sneakers and body armor, too.

Why Cats Smile

No, no - this is about me, not the cat.

People often say that their dogs have a sixth sense and instinctively know when their owners are feeling sad or depressed. Some even say that the reason dogs are used as seizure alert dogs is that they can literally feel a seizure coming on. (On a side note, this isn't true. They alert to the change in scent of a person who's about to suffer a seizure.)

Unlike most people, I don't particularly find this an amazing ability for a dog to have. You see, dogs have a big advantage over us humans, and that is the fact that they're not bogged down with our so-called language "skills". Our language often leads us silly humans to completely mislead others or miss the point when we're talking to people. Someone who's feeling badly can still muster a semi-cheerful "I'm alright", when he wants people to leave him alone in his misery.

Dogs don't fall for this nonsense, because dogs don't speak our language. They speak a much better, and interestingly enough, universal language - body language. While humans often never learn to "read" a person based on their body language, that's what dogs go on approximately 99% of the time, with very few exceptions. The exception to this rule, of course, are the "commands" we teach our dogs. Dogs can tell by our posture, even by subtle changes in our scent or subtle changes in our body chemistry (such as nervous sweating) that things may not be as we would have our human companions believe.

Dogs also respond to these subtle changes accordingly. If your dog knows you're mad - he might hide or cower. He may not know why you're mad, only that you are, and that it's better to keep out of your way when you get that way. Often, dogs that feel their humans get nervous or tense up around strange animals or people may go on that "cue" and act defensively, barking and snarling at the "offending" creature. But most of the time, their humans don't realize this - they think their dog has an aggression problem, although it's them triggering this issue.

The only communication we purposely have with our dogs are commands. While some people like to think that dogs actually understand our language, a command is just a marker used to encourage or elicit a specific behavior. I don't flatter myself into thinking that my Abby understands a lick of German - but she knows that "sitz" means "plop your butt onto the ground." If I had trained her consistently using the word "sit", or even a completely random word, like "pickle" or "ice cream", she would still associate the marker with the action that I've taught her.

This is, of course, the same for people - if I teach you that the correct word for pickle is Gurke (the German word for pickle), you know what I'm talking about just as long as I teach it consistently and for the same object or action.

A lot of people worry about cats and dogs getting together and say that they can only be friends if they've been "raised together". The reason here is that cats and dogs speak different languages in terms of body language, and therefore can't understand each other until they've learned each others language. Just like in humans, it's easier to teach them when they're young. If you'd grown up in China, you'd at least understand enough Chinese to get by. If dog grows up alongside cats, he'll understand at least some of the cat's body language and will react accordingly, and vice versa.