Breed Myths: German Shepherd Dog

I have been around German Shepherds since 1986, and it astounds me that people have such limited knowledge on the breed.  They also tend to base what they know about German Shepherds solely on myths that they've "heard."  I'm here to dispel some myths about German Shepherds:

NO : Longhaired German Shepherds are not "rare."  If you see someone trying to sell longhaired German Shepherds as "rare" or "unique," they are more than likely backyard breeders. 

NO : Solid black or solid white German Shepherds are not "rare."  They are quite common.  White German Shepherds are against breed standard, but solid black German Shepherds are not.

NO : Not all German Shepherds will have hip issues.  Health problems associated with the breed include hip and elbow dysplasia, DM (Degenerative Myelopathy,) and EPI.  However, not ALL German Shepherds will have these issues.  It is important, if you are purchasing a German Shepherd, to buy from a responsible breeder whose breeding stock has been tested for these issues.


NO : A German Shepherd does not "turn on its owner" due to brain growth/skull growth issues (also known as "its brain keeps growing, but its skull doesn't.")  If a German Shepherd becomes aggressive to a human it is because of improper training or treatment, a severe temperament flaw, or because it is in pain/has health issues.


NO : Not all German Shepherds have a sloped back, drag their legs, or have a roached (arched) back.  See third "NO" above.

YES : A German Shepherd that has been improperly socialized can be aggressive and overly-protective of its owner.  That is why it is important to socialize (introduce your puppy to a variety of people, animals, environments, etc.) at a young age.

YES : All German Shepherds shed, and they shed A LOT.  Even with regular grooming, you can expect to find German Shepherd hairs on your clothing and furniture (even if you don't allow them on the furniture.)

YES : A German Shepherd is a LARGE breed of dog not to be confused with "King Shepherds," "Oversized Shepherds," or "Shiloh Shepherds."  You can expect your German Shepherd to weigh between sixty and one hundred pounds (one hundred is on the high end.)  

One step forward. Two steps back.

I came home on Thursday to find a hangtag on my door from the water company.  It said that we had a "higher water consumption rate" and our "dial was spinning, indicating a leak."  Oh boy. 

Then Andrew came home on Thursday, looking and acting like death warmed over.  102.7 degree fever, aches, and a feeling of overall yuckiness. 

I stayed home from work on Friday to take care of Andrew and in case Paulding County or a plumber could come by.  Unfortunately, the plumber couldn't come by until this morning (8 a.m....right on time) and is now outside checking our water lines from the meter to the house, etc. 

By the way, I'm sure Paulding County's hangtag was a nice way of saying, "hey, by the way, your water bill is going to be HUGE! Just thought you should know." 

All I could think of last night was "if we had a well, how would we know if we had a leak in the line?"

Andrew was in bed all day yesterday, and he will probably be in bed all day today. 

I, being nice, slept out in the living room last night.  While Gidget was fine (she curled up at the end of the couch...and I had to wake her up a couple of times because she saws wood when she snores,) Grimm was NOT.  He wanted a slumber party: emphasis on "PAR-TAY!" He would wake me up every two hours, shove his cold, wet nose into my face and snort and nudge.  Then when I woke up, he'd respond with, "OH MY GOSH! YOU ARE TOTALLY AWAKE! I THINK YOU SHOULD FEED MY BREAKFAST, AND THEN WE CAN GO OUTSIDE TO PLAY!" and "GIDGET! GIDGET! GIDGET! WAKE UP! MOM'S UP!" and Gidget responded with "shut up, Grimm.  I'm trying to sleep here."

I think tonight I'll take my chance with getting sick!

Someone's getting a $40 PS3.

or if the video doesn't display above for you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iss7amOxqPE&feature=player_embedded

Apparently, on Amazon.com and Target.com someone made a mistake in updating a sale price on the Playstation 3 gaming console.  The advertised price was $39.99.  (See below)

 

 

That's right....$39.99.  As you can hear from the recording posted above, the kid asked all the right questions, and Amazon.com confirmed the price (mainly because Amazon.com just reads the screen in front of them versus actually think, "why is this $$$ console only $39.99....NEW?"  Amazon.com and Target.com have since changed their websites to reflect the "real" sale price, but because this kid recorded himself asking questions to see if it was legit to Amazon.com....someone's getting a $40 PS3. 

Snow: It's a Love-Hate Relationship.

I love the snow, but what I hate is the people who "think" they know how to drive in ice and snow...and don't.

When I saw the rapid rate at which the snow was falling near our house, I thought, "well...tomorrow is a definite snow day."  That thought was confirmed when, at 5:30 the next morning, I received a text message from my manager with two words: "stay home."

I did, and I took some pictures while I was at it.

The above picture is the accumulation of snow on our back deck.  When this picture was taken, an inch or so had already melted due to frozen rain overnight.

As you can tell, the road leading out of neighborhood hadn't been traveled, but that was probably due to the fact that the MAIN road hadn't been touched.

After the snow, our backyard became a bird wonderland.  We had male (seen above) and female Cardinals, Blue-Jays, and red-headed woodpeckers. 

Gidget loved the snow the night before (it was soft and powdery,) but she was not too keen on the ice-covered snow the following morning.  Grimm, on the other hand, couldn't care less.  Snow is snow in his book, and he is the epitome of "snow dog."

Tuesday, I couldn't get out of our neighborhood let alone venture out onto main roads, but today (Wednesday) was a different story altogether.  Andrew and I headed out to our respective workplaces, and I took it slow and steady.  The majority of the roads I traveled were iced over, and I'm not talking, "ooo watch out....a patch of ice."  I'm talking 2-3" thick of ice and snow you have to crawl over.

It took me an hour and a half to drive seventeen miles this morning.  I had idiots riding the bumper of my car, people slamming on their brakes when they saw ice, people RIDING their brakes going down icy hills, and generally just a bunch of idiots.

I got into work, and I was the only one here besides June in the front office.  My co-worker got in around 9:30 or so, and we are the only two from our company here today.  My manager is sitting bedside at the hospital with his wife who will probably go into labor this weekend, and my other co-worker is stuck at home.  I am leaving today at 3:00 p.m. before it freezes over again (or earlier - who knows?)

Things wouldn't be half as bad if Atlanta was prepared (the DOT, mayor, and governor all keep saying "we weren't prepared...it snuck up on us,) but that's a bunch of bullshit because the news channels were predicting it a WEEK IN ADVANCE. 

Winter.

Well that about sums up my thoughts.  Not only is there a "wintry mix" heading this way (wintry mix is the Southern way of saying "natural disaster,") but my fiance' is incredibly ill and has been since about 3 a.m. this morning.  "Yay." 

My car is parked at the end of our [very steep] driveway, and when reading the news today, I saw that if you live on a two-lane road, you may not even see anyone salting/sanding the roads.  Well, "fortunately" for me, ALL but one of the roads I take into work is a two-lane county road.  Snow doesn't bother me neither does driving in the snow.  It's the icy roads.  Well, it's not even the icy roads.  I can easily drive 15 MPH or less on the ice.  It's the other drivers on the road. 

If you're out driving tonight through Tuesday morning, PLEASE be careful.

If I was a thief....

I posted this on my Facebook after making some observations on my drive home.  If I was a thief, the houses I would hit would be the ones that as of today (Jan. 7th) still have their Christmas lights on their house.  Why? Well, if I was a thief, I would guess that the homeowners are procrastinating to take down their lights until they "get around to it."  What else do they overlook?

Did they ask for identification from the door-to-door salesman that came knocking during the day, and then he came again at night on another day to see if they changed your mind?

Did they pick up the flyer that was posted on their front porch or in their driveway?

When the service person came to their home (who wasn't called) did they walk around the house with him? Did they notice he unlocked one of the windows in the bathroom on the ground floor?

The thief then drives around, and he sees that the lights are still up, and now he knows the homeowners' scheduling because he went there as a door-to-door salesman.

Ever wonder how thieves get the upper-hand?

Insert attention-grabbing title here.

This is a random blog post. I'm certain I should have posted some uber-witty and creative title to my post to draw readers in, but I didn't.  This post is about absolutely nothing really.  There are forty-seven minutes left to my work day, and so I thought I would draw them out as long as possible.

I saw this video of a make-up artist who transforms herself from girl to "Jared Leto." 

The other day I saw a video of a parrot singing Drowning Pool's song "Bodies." 

I head off to Vegas in a little more than a week (work,) and then I'll head back in March (work.)  I checked out our room at Cosmopolitan for March (staying at Encore in January.)  Apparently the commercial for Cosmopolitan of "it's not for everyone" is true, but I like it.

Speaking Out.

This affects many of the people who read this blog, but I am tired of holding it back.

Many of you worship the ground on which a former professor of ours walks; however, if you knew the truth behind this person, you'd change your opinion of them.  I'm using "them" and "they" and the like.  Albeit, I'm doing so grammatically incorrect, but oh well.  It's a blog not a piece of award-winning literature.

Several of us (myself and folks that read this blog) all had one particular professor that we thought was cool, intelligent, and interesting.  Little do you all know, this person talked about you behind your back TO OTHER STUDENTS (myself included.) 

You would bring in your newest short story, poem, or chapter from a novel you were working on, and while this person commended you for your creativity and efforts, they would then bad-mouth you to us and other students while visiting this person in their office.  They would call you naive, ignorant, stupid, immature, and they would call your "works" that you cherished so much "pieces of garbage" and "disgustingly sappy."  Yes, those are exact phrases.

For some of the students that were pursuing careers or graduate school after undergrad school, they had an opinion of you guys, too.  "Spoiled."  "No common sense."  "Snobby."  "Elitist."  Yep.  Those are words they used to describe you, too.  They would also tell us that they knew you needed something from them (a reference, perhaps? a phone call?) but that they were "taking their time" because they "didn't know what to say without lying." 

When a fellow student of ours went into this person's office and started bad-mouthing another to this professor, the professor (instead of trying to stop the student) would join in and call the other student "weird," "clingy," "an emotional wreck," "borderline stalker," and "not someone you should be around."  I am now and forever will be great friends with this person. 

As for two other students, when I spoke with a professor as to how interesting one of them was and how sweet the other was, how I thought they'd make a good couple (now married,) this professor would make a sour face at me, and say, "well they're both rather immature" and "I guess they'd be good together since they're both so oblivious."

I know that our university was based on honesty and integrity, but I think our university needs some sort of system in which students can make complaints against professors and remain anonymous.  Something like doctor/patient confidentiality would work, but I am sure that the university, in all fairness, would want the professor to defend themselves as well. 

And while I am not religious, perhaps there is a reason why The Bible taught others that the practice of idolatry will bite you in the ass one day?

Why I [still] hate UPS.

Yes, yes "hate" is a strong word, but let me tell you why I [still] hate UPS.

A few months ago, I noticed on our company's UPS bill that some company in Jacksonville, Florida (AES) was giving its customers OUR company's UPS account number to return items "next day air."  This means that every shipment that was sent this way was between $40-$150.  I continuously called UPS to complain, they would credit me the charge, look "into this a bit further," and they would say they "took care of it." 

Now, I wouldn't be posting this if any of this had been "taken care of."  I contacted AES who called me back and apologized.  They said "it would never happen again" as it "was an error on their part."  WRONG.

Our UPS Sales Rep (we just met him a few weeks ago...even though we've had an account with UPS for YEARS) seemed like he would make sure everything was okay, corrected, etc. and we even created a new UPS Account.

Created a new one, but UPS didn't bother canceling our old account.  I'm sitting here looking at three bills, and the only shipments on them have the Receiver as AES or no Receiver at all...just a $20/month service charge and a $2/month printer fee. 

I can't help it, UPS, if your Customer Service Representatives SUCK, but we canceled our old account with you due to fraudulent activity so why do you keep billing us a monthly service charge, monthly printer fee, and these shipments to AES? Because you can't find a "billable account" for AES does not mean we will pay fraudulent charges on an account that was supposed to be CLOSED.

2010 in Review.

I know that I am a few days late in posting my 2010 in review, but I've been feeling under the weather. 

2010 can best be summarized in a few choice words, many of which are expletives that I will not repeat here.  We had the passing of Grandpa, my brother's departure to Afghanistan for a year (which means he will not be attending our wedding in August,) our new home west of Atlanta, the accomplishment of set goals, and the realization that there are several hypocrites in this world, and many of them can be found nearby. 

I'll embrace my mantra of "breathe more, worry less" a lot more this year.

I'll make small goals that I know I can accomplish rather than large, lofty goals that would leave me stressed.

I'll realize that people aren't always what they seem to be, and I'm okay with that because...I'm not them.

I'll take the dogs on longer walks every day.

I'll not take "the little things" for granted: the things that took a back seat in 2010.

Because this is a public blog, and because I choose not to post the inner-depths of my life all of the "internets," I'll end my 2010 in Review post with...."bring on 2011!"