LOL, you guys are really too much. You want it so bad, I can actually taste it,
I deleted that post as it provided no further discussion on this topic and was only going to lead to...well...popcorn. I try to be better than that, better than someone who makes personal attacks, especially from behind a keyboard. Sometimes I fail, this was one of those times.
What I should have said is this:
You
@AmmoFort are buying a dog from a puppy mill whose breeding dogs are outside the breed standard and have not been checked for hip and elbow dysplasia nor for Degenerative Myelopathy--two diseases caused by unethical breeders like the ones you are supporting.
As someone who is obviously intelligent and cares about his family, I fail to understand how you would want to put them in a situation, like mentioned above, where you want your children to take their time to train this dog, care for it, love it, and have it as a protector, just to watch it slowly and incredibly painfully die from a preventable disease.
What makes the GSD such a brilliant dog and gives it the qualities you desire is because of ethical breeders who breed out the health issues and choose dogs inside the standard, with the correct temperament, and colors. This insures a high quality dog you can trust. In Germany, it is a criminal offense punishable by jail time to breed any GSD that are not Schutzhund level III trained.
Yes, these dogs are already born. And they were born because of a demand from people like you. People who want a GSD and all the wonderful qualities associated with them, but they don't want to pay for it. So they get watered-down lookalikes. A dog that looks like a German shepherd, but doesn't have the same qualities.
If people, such as yourself, stopped buying these dogs or started demanding health checks, it would either put these breeders out of business or cause them to adapt and become more ethical breeders.
But this is where we seem to disagree. I care about the GSD breed and want to see it preserved so future generations can benefit from them. If the opposite occurs, and the breed is continued to be destroyed, well, there you have it...the breed will be destroyed. This doesn't seem to bother you and at its core where we disagree.
In regards to the additional cost of a health-checked GSD, it is very little in comparison to the potential vet bills. You can get a good, healthy GSD for $1500 around here. That extra grand seems like chump-change when looking at the totality of circumstances.
As for the children training the dog. That sounds like a great plan, except for one thing. The kids don't know how the dog is supposed to act, they have no way of knowing what is ok and what is not. That is why they are children, they don't have adult functioning brains, yet.
That said, it is easy to teach a child to give a dog commands and to reward them. The day my new neighbors moved in, their kids were shouting "we have a German shepherd next door" and were so excited. I asked the parents if they wanted to meet the dog, everyone said yes, and within two minutes their children under ten, were giving my dog commands and she was listening. That doesn't mean they could take that dog from a puppy to its current state, not even close. This is dog training, not dog owning.
By the time you explain to them what the dog did wrong, the time for correction has long passed and the dog will not know why he is being punished. Think about how many times you've seen an owner scold a dog after it comes over to them, the owner is mad for what the dog did before it came, but the dog is being punished for coming to its owner, being punished for doing something correct.
So, yeah, I care about the breed, want to see it preserved, and don't support those who don't. Good Luck with your new family member.
