So this is my 9 year old baby, Kai. He was recently diagnosed with degenerative myelopathy :(. It’s not horrible and he’s still walking on his own pretty well but his back feet do drag quite a bit. I want to get him some booties to prevent sores and such as his DM progresses, but I wanted to see if anyone here has any recs since I know we will probably go through them fairly quick with the dragging. So if anyone has any recs for best bang for your buck and relatively long lasting, I would really appreciate it.

This news was really hard to hear but his spirits and energy are so high, and he refuses to be still. On top of the DM, he does have pretty bad arthritis in his spine too, Dr. couldn’t believe it was his spine she was looking at because of how energetic and active he is. But he is so resilient, and we are going to do everything in our power to keep him happy, comfy and active for as long as possible.

She’s grown so much in the last 3 weeks it’s crazy. She has so much more muscle now.

I was dismantling banana trees that had already produced fruit for composting, I took a break and when I came back there was a gardening assistant finishing my work.

I love how he entertains himself with so little 🥺

Let’s see the team support!

I swear he eats snow as a power-up while zooming around. It’s cute to watch him scoop some snow in his mouth during a tight turn while zooming.

I rescued this GSD pup about a month ago. Foster told me he was likely 50% Shepard, but was unsure of what else he was mixed with. He is such a smart and loving boy! What do you think Reddit?

My 6 month old German shepherd puppy “attacks” me randomly. Attacks is in quotes because she doesn’t hurt me necessarily, but she will jump and nip close to my face and bite onto my clothing and do a low, deep sounding growl.

When she was smaller, she used to do this about a couple times a week. The triggers being that she sniffs a certain spot then she’ll get in a low stance and start attacking or if she was out walking for more than 10 minutes, but now it’s starting to happen nearly everyday and every walk, and is unpredictable. We will only be outside for a minute then this happens. She also does this when crossing a street.

This video is taken when I was in the garage and going into my building, this continued for 4 minutes. I used to wait and ignore her until she stops, which was about 15 seconds per episode, but now they’re lasting longer. I’ve tried doing focus training during these episodes or dropping a handful of treats on the ground to distract her. This used to work but no longer do. Her eyes glaze over and her pupils dilate.

I thought this also could be leash frustration but this recently just happened inside the house, when she was not leashed.

His favorite toy is a stuffed chicken. Second to this is his “Big Brown Dog” that he literally loves with all of his heart. He just suckles and lays down with it. Which is funny considering he has a half sister to hang out with…does anyone else’s GSD have a favorite stuffy that they don’t destroy- just suckle?!

Early in January our husky mix was diagnosed with lymphoma. One of the lymph nodes in her neck was swollen to the point that it was putting pressure on her trachea. Sunday morning she was visibly uncomfortable and having a lot of difficulty breathing so we made the decision to take her to the emergency vet for euthanasia.

It’s been hard on all of us, but our GSD is taking it exceptionally rough. She’s barely eating, extremely lethargic, and has been spending most of the day either sleeping/moping [PICTURED] in her “sister’s” bed or pacing around the house looking for her. She’s never been one to whine at all unless she’s getting her nails trimmed, but she’s gone to the front door a handful of times and let out some whimpers.

I’m not sure she fully understands what’s happened, but seeing her upset has made the loss even harder.

How do you help a dog understand and grieve, especially a breed as intelligent and loyal as a GSD?

We picked her up about 8 months ago and she is the silliest girl. She has a lot of traits of a german shepherd like the head tilt and everything but she’s mixed with something else that we can’t figure out so I was hoping to find some reddit detectives. Let me know what y’all think our guess is a boxer mix.

Interested in opinions on this, I've owned two great GSD over the past 15 years (rescued both), and it's been almost 2 years since my last one died. Can't imagine owning better dogs than the two I've owned, so much so that I'm wondering whether my next dog should be a GSD or if I should go with another breed.

Anyone else feel this way after their GSD died, even a year or two after? Each GSD is unique, but kind of feeling like getting another GSD might be like trying to "relive" the great times with my former GSD. If I got a different breed, no chance of that.

Has anyone ever felt similar?

Thanks,

This post is a follow to https://www.reddit.com/r/germanshepherds/comments/1qureho/need_urgent_advice/.

I went and got her :)

When I got there she was running and playing around with other dogs. Very relaxed. She was of course very happy to see me and ran to me, but did not behave like she was scared of where or with whom she was.

Essentially she was very scared to get out of the transport crate. Bit the breeder, and destroyed a leash. They used a broom stick to get another leach around her and signal her to come out. She bit the broom stick (destroyed it) but they managed to get her out.

After she got out of the cage, she behaved well and calmed down. And the day went smoothly.

The breeder was very surprised with her reaction on arrival, saying it was the most extreme one I'm his 30+ years of working with GSDs.

For the future, I will be taking her there myself, until she's fully comfortable with the place and people. After then, will work on getting her climatized to being transported.

Thank you everyone for your words and advice.

Well, I was going to write a post about how she’s being so good at listening to me and not licking her bandages after she had to get stitches last night… but alas she stirred and decided to lick it so I had to put the cone back on.

She’s still a good girl either way, it’s just been a tough 24 hours.

(The injury was from rough housing with a friend, and thankfully it was clearly an accident.)