Miscellaneous information

German Shepherd Dogs are not usually fussy eaters or, at least, I have never had a fussy eater. They will eat just about most things. Our adult dogs regularly eat things like bananas, oranges, pears and even grapefruit. Of course, dogs are carnivores and so their main food intake must always be meat.

Although you can feed your dog whatever you like personally I think dogs do best on raw foods and particularly on raw meat. Feeding raw takes a little more time and thought than feeding so called 'complete' foods or food out of a tin but if you do go to the trouble you do at least know what your dog is eating. Ask yourself whether a human being would thrive on a diet comprised exclusively of 'ready meals'. I very much doubt it. A diet like that is very likely to lead to all sorts of dietary deficiencies and, in the long term, probably health problems.

Feeding raw is not necessarily more expensive than feeding so called 'complete' foods. It simply requires a bit more organisation such as separate freezer space for meat intended for dogs. I used to get most of my raw meat from a company called Landywoods although there are others. Landywoods deliver nationwide. Other companies may cover more local areas. We now get our supplies from Durham Animal Feeds primarily because they deliver fortnightly.

If you take a look at this part of their web sites it will give you a good overview of the sort of raw foods your dog can eat.

Landywoods

Durham Animal Feeds

The web site will also give you quite a good idea of the cost of the different types of meat you can buy from which you can see that it can be more cost effective than 'complete' foods. Your dog will certainly be the better for it.

We do also use vitamin supplements and get ours from Germany from a company called Cafortan. These things can be ordered online and always arrive promptly. Their web site address is

Cafortan

The 1 kg size contains 1,000 tablets which will last one dog quite a long time...

The health of your dog is not only determined by genetics but also upon what you feed it and how you look after it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2022 02:40PM by davidterry.

Another thing which I should like to mention is please do not neuter our puppies. Once you take them home the puppy will be yours and the choice to spay or neuter will be yours but please think very carefully if you are ever minded to do this.

For a start our puppies come from exceptional blood lines. They can be traced back to the beginning of the breed. These are not Heinz 57 dogs. It is quite possible they may have something to offer the breed. You cannot show a neutered or spayed dog.

Now, the main reason I feel that I have to mention this is because it seems to me that you cannot take a dog into a veterinary surgery without the vet asking whether the dog has been spayed or neutered and then going on to suggest that this is in the best interests of the dog. This is utter rubbish. Vets make money out of spaying or neutering dogs.

The alleged 'advantages' are non existent. You will not have a 'calmer' dog. Spaying or neutering is not a substitute for properly socialising your dog and taking him/her to obedience classes. These are obviously not the type of dog that people allow to wander the streets and mate with other unsuspecting dogs. An intact male German Shepherd is no more or less trouble to keep than a neutered one. Female German Shepherds do, of course, have seasons but that is no more than once every seven months or so. It is not so difficult to keep an intact female away from the unwanted attentions of a male dog for seven days.

Here is a link to an article about the benefits and disadvantages of spaying or neutering a dog based on a review of the medical evidence. If some vet or smart alec ever suggests this course of action to you do please read this article and think very carefully about it. In some circumstances it can be justified but in the vast majority of healthy animals it is a bad thing to do and carries more risks than benefits.

Spaying or neutering dogs

For anyone who is interested you can find quite a lot of dog stuff on these two web sites. The Leerburg site is in the US and the Klin Kassel site is in Germany but both do mail order and they are very efficient.



Leerburg

Klin Kassel

Insurance

You will probably want to insure your puppy and I would strongly recommend that you do. The Kennel Club does run a scheme for breeders which enables them to issue a cover note for the Kennel Club pet insurance for six weeks. I do not do this because once you are enrolled on this insurance you then have to opt out of it when the six weeks are up. I think it is much better that people find an insurance policy which suits their needs (and budget) rather than have one foisted upon them which may be unsuitable and/or excessive for their needs.

You can easily compare the offerings of different pet insurers on price comparison web sites. It is worth taking a little time to do this because premiums vary quite a lot (just as it pays to shop around for your car insurance). For what it is worth, insuring each of my adult dogs costs me about £90 a year (which is not with the Kennel Club).

The reason I think you should insure your puppy is not to cover vet's bills or to pay the cost of a reward if the puppy goes missing. I have never had to use insurance to cover vet's bills because I have never needed to use a vet for anything other than checking the health of puppies before sale, annual vaccinations, pet passports and stuff to do with mating dogs which needs blood tests to pinpoint the exact day, scans etc. Also, German Shepherds just do not get lost. They stick to you like glue.

No, what you need insurance for is something which most people do not think about and which is something you hope will never happen. This is third party liability insurance. This comes with almost every insurance policy as part of the package but, so far as I know, you cannot buy it separately. Third party liability insurance is very important. It isn't about your dog biting someone (although third party liability insurance covers that). It is about the possibility of your dog causing a traffic accident.

Say, for instance, you momentarily lose control of your dog as he runs after a cat, a squirrel, a pigeon or whatever. Even with the best trained dogs this type of thing can occasionally happen. And say that your dog runs across a road causing a car to swerve and crash. If a person is injured in an accident like that then the car owner's insurance company will sue you. Damages for personal injury can runs into tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds. Even if you were only partially at fault (because, for instance, the car was speeding) then even a proportion of such damages will make it a very, very expensive accident. It is something you hope will never happen and the risk may be small but if it happens the financial consequences could be catastrophic for most people. This is the main reason why I think you should insure your dog.

But shop around. There isn't any point in paying for more cover than you need or want. And basic cover for this sort of third party liability is relatively cheap. It just isn't worth running the risk of being without it.

Our puppies puppies will be micro-chipped, wormed and vet checked. You will need to make sure that they get their second vaccination by the time they are 12 weeks old. Some vets will tell you that you need another two vaccinations but you don't. They will have had their first vaccination by the time you collect them. They will then need one more vaccination before the age of 12 weeks to complete their immunization. After that you can take them out and let them socialise freely.

It may be worth mentioning that if you want a pet passport or the post Brexit equivalent for your puppy it will first need to have been micro chipped. Then, when the puppy is at least 12 weeks of age you need to get him/her vaccinated against rabies. Vaccinations for rabies cannot be done until the puppy is at least 12 weeks old. You can travel and return from Europe with your puppy 21 days after the rabies vaccination so long as you have the properly animal health certificate. Your vet will be able to do this for you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2022 03:09PM by davidterry.