BERND VOM ALYESKA
GONE FISHING
AS A YOUNG PUP IN NEW YORK
BERND VOM ALYESKA
POSING
FOR THE CAMERA, LATE 2004
A Letter from Bernd's Owner:
May 5, 2004
Hi Landis,
Hope all is well with you and your family there now that spring has come to
the great white north. I just thought I would fill you in on how Bernd is
doing and provide some info that may be useful to you.
At almost 15 months he is 25 inches at the shoulder and 90 pounds. His chest
is 32 inches around, his back is 27 inches from shoulder blade to tail and
it is 12 1/2 inches from his elbows to the ground. His chest extends right
to his elbows so it is 12 1/2 inches deep. His teeth and coat are perfect.
Bernd has a lot of reddish coloration around his head and neck but generally
looks more like a combination of one of those really reddish show dogs and
a black and tan GSD. Bernd is quite big boned compared to a lot of the dogs
we see at training. His feet are a bit bigger than most and he out weighs
some of the dogs that are taller than him. He is not fat though. He has a
clearly defined waist. At a year old I had him in to see a Vet who manipulated
his hips with his hands and said they were both tight. I was not sure exactly
what is meant by that but he expressed the opinion that they were what he
likes to see. I will bring him in for X rays later. His pasterns are at a
steeper angle than what I guess experts like to see, but his front feet have
tightened up somewhat in the last few months.
In training he is doing very well. He is an excellent tracker, although he
likes to cheat for the first ten or fifteen feet and air scent when he starts
out. He is usually so excited when he first gets on the field that he wants
to race right down the trail. He can effectively track on blacktop, grass,
snow, in a hayfield, in the woods, threw uncut brush, and in the wind and
rain. Changing terrain and making turns in the course does not seem to bother
him. The only trouble spot is when we go through a marshy area where the scent
spreads out. He always finds the trail,but it does take him a minute to figure
it out.At this point he is just following my scent path and is rewarded with
food at the end. He is pretty consistent at laying down for articles, though
sometimes he wants to get up to soon and continue tracking.
On the obedience field he does well on the leash and is learning to do routines
off the leash. He is getting better at staying in a plots, (please excuse
any spelling errors) when he is on the long down, and I am at a distance,
and he is under distraction by another dogs routine. He will consistently
do the verouse, group routine, moving sits, moving plots and recall. He is
just learning about jumps and ramps. He is a ball maniac. Given the choice
in training, Bernd prefers the ball to food, and I'm talking BACON. He will
literally chase the ball until he is exhausted and his feet bleed. I actually
have to limit him because he would just keep going. He still has trouble with
giving the ball back to me so I use two balls when we play fetch and do not
throw until he releases the first ball.
Bernd excels in protection work. He is absolutely fearless. I have been getting
instruction as an agitator since my back healed, (I broke three vertebrae
in my back during November of last year and was laid up for three months)
and can see a real difference now in the way the different dogs hit the sleeve.
Bernd is not at all shy. He is learning to search multiple blinds now and
when he finds the agitator holds him in place just as he should. He gives
immediate and effective chase during the escape and hits like a Mack truck
on the courage test. We have to use a hard sleeve with Bernd to protect the
agitators arm. In the past couple of months his bite has gotten so firm the
intermediate sleeve was not good enough. I am really proud of the way Bernd
does protection because he is not mean about it at all. He outs when told
and is always wagging his tail and looks very happy to be there with us. In
contrast some of the dogs seem really afraid out there and go sneaking around
the blind when doing searches or try and sneak in a bite from the side instead
of facing the agitator.
He is a friendly dog in general. Away from home he accepts adults, children
and other animals very easily, including cats. At home I am working on the
issue of behavior with guests coming in the front door. He is very protective
of the family and of this property, as it should be. I have to keep him separated
from our 17 year old cat. He knows she lives here too and I really think he
would eat her if he got the chance. He is crazy in the house and seldom lays
down and sleeps if he is out of his kennel or crate. He still sleeps in his
crate at night because he cannot be trusted around shoes. He has eaten up
seven pairs of shoes when no one was looking. Even though I am the one who
trains him, he loves my wife and prefers her company, and shoes. He is pretty
good around my six year old son, although he plays a little rough because
of the size difference, and would sleep on his bed if allowed. We have to
be careful here about that because of the tick problem. So far this year I
have pulled eight ticks off him and one off myself.
As far as diet goes, since I broke my back, he has been getting hypo allergenic
salmon based kibble with IAMS canned food, sardines, meat scraps, pigs ears,
greenies, occasional; bananas, carrots, raw chicken and vitamins. The one
thing we adamantly restrict is corn products of any kind. My last dog got
diabetes and I always thought it was all the corn sugar in the food I had
given her. He will not eat milkbones or other dog biscuits. I do think his
coat was nicer when he was on the all natural diet, but things got tough around
here for a while when I was laid up and so we started using processed food.
He does have to move his bowel twice as often on the processed food as before.
I have recently joined SchH USA and am awaiting the first magazine with a
list of events for the coming year. When Bernd gets his BH I will let you
know.
I hope some of this info is interesting to you if not useful to your breeding
program.
Take Care,
Steve
PS
I just wanted to share this story with you as a testament to Bernd's courage.
The man we train with has 5 large Red Scottish Cattle and two horses that
roam the large field in which we train. Each of the Reds weighs in at between
2000 and 3000 pounds. They are literally as big as a car. The cattle are OK
with the dogs and will typically walk up to them and give them a sniff. The
dogs, and I mean every single one, will cower and let the cattle wander by.
When a cow tried the same thing with Bernd, he stood up faced the cow gave
her a bark and scared the hell out of it. It was hysterical to see this giant
cow jump. Bernd was on a pretty long lead tied off to a tree and I swear to
God he looked like he was going to try and herd these massive beasties. I
know he has never been trained to herd sheep, not to mention cattle, but I
think he really wanted to try. In any case it was pretty funny to see the
cow jump and run away from this little dog only 1/20th its size.
BERND VOM ALYESKA
SCHUTZHUND
PRACTICE, MARCH 2005
JUDE VOM ALYESKA, 4 MONTHS OF AGE
FIRST
DAY AT SCHUTZHUND PRACTICE IN ALBANY, NEW YORK
BEN VOM ALYESKA, DECEMBER 2004
BEN IS
TRAINING FOR HIS SCHUTZHUND TITLES IN MARYLAND
