L orelei GSD Kennels
CAESAR was a no-pedigree-&-no-registration-available pup bought for £5 during Easter 1967 as the "bride price" I had to pay to keep Jeannie happy. A contrasty silver-sable, he was a very happy puppy, and quick on the up-take. Because we were surrounded by sheep on 3 sides, I bought a pet lamb and trained him that he was NOT allowed to bite it.
After we moved into the city, we found we couldn't keep his mind occupied, so he was given to a farmhand who wanted a dog to talk to while he was fencing in the hill country. Soon afterwards, the farmhand had to check whether the sow had started farrowing - she had, and was in a VERY bad mood, so tried to attack the farmhand. Caesar slipped through the sty's rails and pinned the sow as though he'd been trained for it, so the farmhand decided to try him out on sheep. A month later the farm's Collie was sent back to the breeder, and Caesar became the farm's drover (working Collie-style rather than GSD-style) along SH1, until one day as he was moving a mob through Rata (a hamlet between Marton & Hunterville) the impatient driver for whom he was clearing a path through the sheep ran him over.
Volkerson ZACKI, (by Ch. Shadowsquad Kelly (Imp.UK) ex Vikkas Shindy av Hvitsand (Imp.UK) ) a contrasty gold-sable, was bought at about 9 months old. Coming from what was presumably a violent marriage break-up, she was willing to attack anything in long trousers - which unfortunately included the jeans-wearing wife of the helicopter pilot who lived behind the ancient mansion we were renting. The woman had decided, without asking us, to spread a paper-chase trail across the paddock that we rented, and appeared while Zacki was out loose to go toilet. Zacki had one litter, but her breeding career was ended after one of her pups began collapsing in pain at 3-4 months old. Our vet sent us to the veterinary university where NZ's first HD scheme was being developed. Zacki easily passed all the physical tests they were trying, such as having to move around in the waltz position with one prof while the other studied her action. But the xrays showed that she had almost no hips left. During discussion, we found that the profs had operated to correct the stud's HD - so we had put a badly dysplastic bitch to an even-more dysplastic dog.... No wonder the pup inherited HD !
JENA = Jean of High Clear (by SV.Gold Medallist Ch. Yokel of Nerrav (Imp.UK) ex Ch. Xada of Nerrav (Imp.UK)) was born 29.10.1968, and was chosen for me by Jeannie. She was delightfully easy to train, and LOVED her dumbbell. Soon after we got her, we moved to our own first home - a 3 years old 1000 sq.ft. house on a quarter-acre section for $7300! There we were a short drive from an abandomed Softball ground, so we took Jena (and soon Rella too) there to exercise them. Jena couldn't imagine us being so cruel as to keep her separated from her beloved dumbbell so, when she decided we were readyto tell her to get into the station wagon to go home, she would take her dumbbell into the lupins growing wild around the grounds, and hide it there before getting into the vehicle. When we brought her back a day or 2 later, she went straight to the dumbbell and presented it to be thrown.
When we were competing, anyone who bet that she would end her Sit-skid before the dumbbell bashed my shins was almost certain to lose, so great was her enthusiasm as she brought it back. She picked up tests such as the scent cloths after just one on-lead walk to sniff her way around each cloth then be praised when she sniffed the right one - after that she needed only to be sent out to check the cloths herself.
Her big defect was in off-lead Heel-work - she was constantly checking the ring-side for old friends and possible future friends, with the result that she was usually half-a-step late turning when the Ring Steward ordered me to turn.
After we moved to Paterangi she was mated to Ch. Burma Star of Marlish (Imp.UK) (a son of Sgr. Marko vom Cellerland SchH3 FH) by whom she whelped, on 6.7.1971, just one pup, who received all the love and MILK Jena had so grew FAST - yep, he developed HD before he was a year old. And then Jena fell ill to a virus, and died. I wonder whether it was leptospirosis from the rats that lived along the tree line and in the roof-space, but her death was just as the Xmas holidays began and so the samples collected from her sat around for weeks instead of being promptly checked, and the result was that nothing was detected.