Good post @Leanne1986. I can’t believe the utter cruelty of humans at times.
I always swore I would never have a German shepherd. Then Rick brought Dakota home. The guy who had her originally paid $600 for her because she came from a long line of viscous guard dogs. He trained her and trained her. She learned her stuff (and I’ve seen her use it a couple of times over the last 8 years,but only under extreme circumstances,) but she refused to become viscous. Guy got disgusted and gave her to us.
She was the most scared, depressed, emotionally (and probably physically) beat up dog.
As her personality emerged, she turned out to be the sweetest, most intelligent, non-aggressive dog I have ever seen. But watch out, boy, if you threaten one of her family, even if it’s just her cat. I saw her take out two big stray dogs who showed up in our yard and attacked Dutchess, our other dog. Dakota just kicked their ass! She was like Cujo! It was like, “Who are you and what have you done with my dog??”
But during peace times, if we’re taking a walk, and a dog starts barking aggressively, Dakota ducks her head and tugs me across the street away from it. It’s like, “Look, Mom. I’ll kill him if I have to, but I really hate doing that so lets just go somewhere else.”
One time she got out during the night. Turns out there was a 5 year old kid walking past our house at about 4 a.m., crying and alone. Long story short, all we could figure was that Dakota cleared our 5’ fence. She stayed with him the whole night, guarding him, until people found him about 8 a.m. the next morning. The kid’s mom made a point of finding us to thank our dog….