This is Our German Shepherd, Axle
by Kristina Collier
What a handsome German Shepherd
This is our Axle. He's the center of our world!!
We adopted him from our county animal control shelter in February of 2011. We knew nothing about sheps at the time-- but he's sold us on the breed.
He is such an amazing animal. He was picked up as a stray and, after his 7 days in the shelter were up he was still unclaimed. We heard about him and I went to pick him up-- sight unseen. I had no idea what I was getting myself into... only that I could stop this dog from being put to sleep.
Since bringing him home at a mere 85 pounds, he has bulked up to 105 and our vet is happy with that. He's healthy, happy, and we simply adore him. In odd and different ways we've learned soooo many things about this amazing dog.
One of our local K-9 officers stopped by to see him after having heard that he was adopted out of animal control. Through this visit, we learned that Axle knows how to track. He has an AMAZING ball drive and we learned about this from the officer as well.
By random curiosity (and some help from Google) we learned that Axle knows all of his commands in German-- when we picked him up he was already trained. We have done nothing in the line of training and he's been so much fun to get to know. He does superbly well off his leash as he has no desire to wander too far from mom.
We have had a few run-ins with other dogs and he's been right there to step in between me and the other dogs to let them know they cannot harm me.
I have always considered myself a dog lover; however, until we adopted our Axle I don't think I ever really knew how much I could love a dog. He is so much more than "just a dog" to us... we talk about him all the time just like most parents do with their children.
We are always taking pictures of him. I actually connected with a professional photographer who took some shots of him as well. He's also going to be in our engagement pictures and part of our wedding party, too. Yeah... it's pretty obvious that he's the king of our house and we wouldn't have it any other way.
Thank you for your site, for your love of the breed, for all of the knowledge/insight you provide, and for another avenue for us to share our dog love. :) Please see the attached entry for the monthly photo contest.
Thank you again,
Kristina Collier