My Black German Shepherds: "Eik" & "Kora"

Subject: Meet Eik!
Time: 10:28:35 PM EST
Author:  starlady11

I've always wanted a dog of my own, but that reality didn't happen until 2000 when I got my first dog, "Eik" from a dealer in South Carolina.  My dear mother had died from a common, but little known disease called hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) on May 13, 1999 and I was deeply grieved.  I knew that a special dog would help me with my grief and help me to cope with this devastating loss.  I had seen a photo of Eik before I actually met him and I knew instantly that he was "my" dog.  We were destined to be together.  I fell in love with him instantly and knew he had to be mine.  He was a German import and just waiting for me in South Carolina.  My boyfriend was allergic to dogs, though, but knew I was serious about getting a dog, so he started getting allergy shots for dog hair and dog dander.  He was really great to do that for me and I'll always appreciate that (and he's still taking the allergy shots today!)  In fact, my boyfriend, Dave, actually never liked dogs.  He had been attacked by one as a kid when he was delivering newspapers and just didn't like them.  He never had dogs as a kid, so this was going to be new for him.  Well, guess what?  He loves Eik!  And, Eik sure loves him.  He's Eik's "daddy" and they are best buds now!

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Subject: The big Shepherd on the corner in Dayton, Ohio
Time: 10:27:22 PM EST
Author:  starlady11

It's a wonder that I like German Shepherds after an experience that I had when I was a child.  I was probably about 8 or 9 years old.  I was walking home from school by myself in Dayton, Ohio.  There was a very large house on a hill that I passed each day.  That one day I decided to literally "cut corners" and walked onto the front lawn of this house as I turned the corner to walk toward my house.  As I made the minor shortcut, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move, then I heard it...the barking, very loud barking.  Coming at me full tilt was a large (or it seemed very large at the time!) German Shepherd.  It was charging across the lawn at me and I was terrified.  I immediately started running as fast as I could to the other side of the corner I was crossing and jumped off a little wall onto the sidewalk on the side street.  My heart was pounding and I had no idea what this dog might do once it actually caught up with me.  As I jumped off the wall, I could hear the dogs' panting right at my back.  As I hit the sidewalk I backed up to the wall and just stood there, wondering when the dog would round the corner, or jump off the wall and confront me.  However, once I was on the sidewalk, I didn't see the Shepherd.  Once I had left the borders of its realm, I was somehow "off limits" and it trotted back to its house.  Mind you, this was long before the days of the "invisible fence".  This was in the 50's, and no such device existed for dogs that I know of like that.  I never forgot this experience with the big German Shepherd on the hill, yet it didn't sour me against dogs in general, or German Shepherds in particular.  I knew that I shouldn't have been cutting across this person's yard and I was.  It was the first, and last, time that I ever did that! 

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Subject: Playing with other people's dogs...
Time: 10:27:03 PM EST
Author:  starlady11

Since I didn't have a dog of my own, I would always welcome the chance to play with other people's dogs.  It was always a special treat for me.  One time, a friend, Karen, from my elementary school in Dayton, Ohio, invited me over to her house after school.  My mom drove me over there and let me out.  When I got to her door and rang the doorbell, I heard something that I had never heard before.  It was the low, husky bark of a very large dog.  I could see the dog through the door when Karen opened it.  It was dark and big and very scary looking.  I had never seen such a dog in my life!  I learned from Karen that it was her Doberman, or "Dobie" as they are called by their owners, and that it was actually quite friendly.  While at her house, we decided to play "horse", one of my favorite games since I loved horses, and we set up jumps made of chairs and so forth throughout the house.  Her house was set up in such a manner that we could make a full circle through her house with jumps set up along the way.  So, that afternoon, Karen, her Dobie and I had a lot of fun racing around and around the house, jumping hurdles and having a great time! 

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Subject: My first dog...Muffin
Time: 10:17:53 PM EST
Author:  starlady11

My first dog, in a sense, belonged to my parents.  They bought their little Scottish Terrier, "Muffin", as a pup and brought him home in a laundry basket.  He was their "baby" before I arrived. 

When I was two years old, I was playing with Muffin and had one of his toys.  I playfully held the toy up as he jumped for it.  I held the toy close to my face and he jumped up and grabbed the toy, and accidentally cut my upper lip.  My mother had asked my dad to watch me, and he never dreamed that something like this would happen.  Of course, Muffin didn't mean to do this.  He was not an aggressive dog; it was simply an unfortunate accident which caused my parents great stress and anxiety.  They loved Muffin very much, but realized that a small child and a dog, no matter how docile, can be a dangerous match.   When the doctor came over to the house to see me (that was in the days when doctors made house calls), he told my parents the only way to know if Muffin had rabies or not was to send his head to a lab to be examined.  My parents had just missed having given Muffin his annual rabies shot, but never let him run free, he was totally a house dog.   They didn't want to have to kill Muffin to find out if he had rabies, but they felt the chances that he had rabies were almost nil, so they opted not to kill him (I'm glad they didn't do that).  The doctor didn't take stitches in my lip and I still have the scar above my upper lip.  From time to time, someone will ask me about it and I will recount the story of Muffin. 

My parents sadly gave Muffin up and gave him to my father's mother, who adored all kinds of dogs and kept Muffin until his dying day.  It was a good compromise, my parents could still see Muffin, he was still, so to speak, "in the family".  I don't remember the "Muffin incident", so I was not affected in my feelings for dogs.  All I know is that I wanted a dog during my childhood, but never had one, although I did have an assortment of other animals, from a turtle to a parakeet, to a cat to a horse.  I would have to wait until I was an adult before I could have a dog it seemed.

 

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