Yesterday a comment on someone else's blog was that the commenter's neighborhood was currently full of Yellow Lab and/or Golden Retrievers, and the popularity (pupularity?) of this breed made them seem "generic." And not serious.
How serious can you be when your main job skill consists of an instinctive, almost irresistible urge to go and jump in the lake?
While retrievers are big enough to be a serious investment of exercise time and dog food funds, they were undeniably bred for sport. For fun. They excel at sharing fun with their humans, like Marley in the movie and Barkley in the book, or like the resident dogs at the boardinghouse from which I walked to that little church college. Those boardinghouse dogs were irresistibly lovable. Born to share long walks and runs with young humans, fetch toys for the humans to throw and then snuggle beside the humans while they study or watch television, and to like almost all humans, retrievers are a good choice for boardinghouse pets. And when you need a serious, protective looking dog...some retrievers can rise to the occasion, too.
But if the neighborhood is so full of retrievers that it's hard to tell which one belongs to whom, and you want a big, serious, yet friendly dog...well, cheers to you for wanting to make the investment! As noted earlier, shelters are full of dogs who've been rejected because they were too serious, too much dog, for some people to handle. The working breeds from which service dogs are usually chosen, collies and shepherds, are fairly easy to adopt. Their adoption fees can be high, but so is their food budget and the assumption tends to be that, if you want a big responsible guard dog, you can afford to pay $300 or more.
We had a collie post in June, so it must be time for a German Shepherd post. These wolfish-looking dogs are usually gentle and loyal and lovable and good with children, but they're still a very serious commitment. You will be buying many pounds of meat, scooping many pounds of animal exhaust, walking many miles with an animal who's strong enough to drag you, getting the dog to the vet from time to time, and paying serious vet bills if the dog actually becomes ill. But if you want the look and personality (though not the tidy half-hour scripts) of "Rin Tin Tin," the commitment is worth it.
Zipcode 10101: Frieda from Chittenango
Frieda is only two years old. Though she'll be an Old Dog at seven, for now she's still a frisky pup who likes long, brisk hikes. She will escort you through New York City or through the northern Appalachian mountains, in any kind of weather. She likes children. She has been a stern but well liked leader of lesser dogs--her foster humans don't want her to have to fight to maintain leadership, which she probably would do all too well. They don't expect her to do well wih smaller animal species. How she relates to horses or cattle is unknown. Her foster human likes road trips and so does she; Frieda's travelled from Texas to New York State and her foster human will bring her to where you are, if you're the right sort of human. (I'd guess that the right sort of human would want to pay all travel expenses and encourage her foster human to do some souvenir shopping in the right sort of human's town.)
Zipcode 20202: Zara from DC
Right. Note her web address. Note which rescue organization she's coming from. This group specializes in rescuing hard-to-place dogs just before a city shelter has them gassed. There have already been some behavior problems--with straying, if nothing worse--and they specialize in big police-type dogs, so they're talking about a VERY serious commitment. They claim to spend more money hauling and vetting each dog than they recover on the hefty "adoption fee," which is probably true. You will be making further serious investments of time and money, following up with dog training school and veterinary care. You will need to convince the shelter staff that you've lived with police dogs before. You can, however, arrange to meet in a public place rather than sending them inappropriate information on the Internet.
If you're thinking that this year-old pup sounds like fifty pounds of trouble, you're probably right, but it would probably be the right kind of trouble--the "pains" anyone has to take to rear a puppy into a good dog. She may grow bigger. She'll need refresher courses in where to find your dog restroom area and other rules of your home. She might be overexcited by smaller pets or children. She's choosy about other dogs, too; they don't recommend planning to walk with her at a dog park since she might feel a need to assert dominance over other people's dogs. She'll help you keep fit, but she needs further training in walking beside you like a serious guard dog as opposed to running you off your feet. If that sounds like fun--the investment you expect to make in a smart, tough, serious canine companion--then Zara is for you.
Zipcode 30303: Jax from Roswell
His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/jax-69247793/ga/roswell/german-shepherd-dog-rescue-group-of-georgia-inc-ga287/
The photo was not my first choice. (That would have been a pup called Eloise, who is described as "URGENTLY" needing a home, but then the alleged rescuers want to read your application and then bring the dog to your home. Well, that might only indicate that they're control freaks and does not guarantee a visit from burglars, but they need to know that, times being what they are and Atlanta being what it is, y'know, y'know...they need to bring the dog out to meet you in a public place, and provide some information about their idiotic control-freaking selves and their homes before they ask to be invited to other people's homes. The gall!
However, their loss may be your gain if you want to adopt a young, lively, trainable, yet serious police-type dog in Georgia. Jax is described as the very best-case rescue dog. He was raised and trained by kind people and turned in only because he lost them. He's described as sweet, even shy, not aggressive but loyal. He is still young and bouncy and, like the more challenging pups described above, still needs to be adopted by someone with experience hiking or jogging with a large energetic adolescent dog. If you've lived with this type of dog before, but this will be your first time as the legal owner of one, Jax is probably for you.
As always, if you can't adopt these dogs, please share their pictures! Together we can Picture Them Homes. The year's coming to an end, the sponsors are going to want to see some numbers, and because they are such a serious investment, these beautiful dogs need all the help to find homes they can get.
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