A few years did pass by, my short-hair female was almost 10 years old, when I looked at a litter of short-hair shepherds and among them was one Long hair. That night I did not leave my friends place without this dog. My female "Cora" treated this puppy like it was her own. We named him "Savage". This pup learned a lot from our Cora until she passed away one year later.
Savage turned out to be a very strong male dog with a lot of play-drive. He was very smart, it was easy for me to train him for "schutzhund", but above of this all he was a great family member. Great with children and very protective towards strangers.
In them days not one year went by without taking this dog with us
on our vacations.
Even though I did have two children, I still took the time to train him at our dog-place
near by. I was the only one with a Long-hair Shepherd. but I was lucky that at our
dog-place they accepted him being a Long-hair and helped with the training when questions
occurred. I have to mention this, because I know from others, that at some dog-places
(Ortsgruppe) from the SV (Schäferhundeverein) Long hair Shepherds are not like
to be seen. Even though they do appear in their litters. Fortunately the members at
our dog-place did not think this way. That is the reason while I am still a member
in this club after 31 years.
A few years later we had moved in another house, much bigger, with more land for the children and animals.
Sometimes I thought of getting another dog since we had more room, but at that time I did not have enough time to look for the one I really wanted. A few years later a friend of mine, gave to me a female, which had fallen in a short-hair litter. Her name by paper was "Lady", but since she thought she was so tough, when somebody wanted to come in our house, we changed this name into "Toughy1.
With our Savage she got along real good. Sometimes the thought came
into my mind to breed this wonderful dogs, but I knew, that the short-hair club (SV)
would never change their Beliefs.
Then one day in the year 1993 I read in a magazine about the "existence"
of the LSVD (Long-hair German Shepherd Club Germany e.V.). I also read, that in the
fall of 1993 they would hold a yearly show only for long-hair dogs and this show would
be held only 15 km away from our house. I did register our Toughy to show her on that
day and then my daughter and I went to this show. We found out more information about
this Club and just loved everything about it. That day we heard about the strict regulations
for breeding and many more details about this Club. Also we made 2nd place with our
female and became members of this club shortly afterwards.
In the year 1995 my daughter Jessica did get our kennel registered
with the name "vom Haus Barrett". It was named after our beautiful three
year old male dog "Barrett". The task of this kennel "vom Haus Barrett"
was and still is, to breed confident and healthy family dogs, which also could be used
in "schutzhund" or as rescue dogs etc. The pups will grow up in a family
environment and also the parents of those pups have to be trained in "schutzhund",
rescue work etc, before they can be entered in front of a breeding board.
Of course you need a lot of place to breed healthy dogs. In the year 2000 we have built
a few kennels with running areas on our land and also have grass land, where the pups
can roam around while they are growing up.
At times we have two and three dogs in the house. We change them off every day. No matter how many dogs we have, all of them are part of the family and they will get treated like that. This is a very important aspect in raising dogs with sound-characters. This creates much work, but it is worth it, when you hear from the new owners, how happy they are with their new puppy, how the puppy loves children and how easy it was to get them house-broke.
In 1995 we did purchase two pups out of SV-litters, one female "Quinta vom Mainbogen", a daughter of the famous short-hair dog "Ulk von Arlett" and another male "Gustl von der Köhlertanne", a son of "Utz Arminius" and "Haifa von der Wienerau", which is a sister from the famous "Hanno von der Wienerau".
The breeder of the male "Gustl von der Köhlertanne" was very disappointed, when he saw that the pups hair day by day did get longer and longer. This was bad luck for him and good luck for us. The pups confirmation at that time was looking very promising. He also had a very masculine head. If he would have stayed a short-hair, his home by now for sure would not be Germany anymore.
The pups of our first litter did open their eyes in 1996, five altogether. The dam of these pups was our "Ondie vom Jägerstand" and the sire was "Ufo vom Lärchenwald". He had a dark-red pigment, which he had inherited to the puppies. Also the pups were very strong build with beautiful masculine and feminine heads. These pups showed us, that we were breeding with the best intentions and the rewards were good looking, healthy pups.
A year later we had another litter of nine very strong built pups from our dam "Quinta vom Mainbogen" and the sire was "Elvis vom Finkenschlag".
Since our "Quinta" was very good in "schutzhund". We took her to the highest level SchH3 and IPO 3 and then looked for another male out of the blood-line "Ulk Arlett". We were lucky and found one exactly what we were looking for (rich pigment, strong bone structure, masculine head)
Here you can see, how much a young dog can change within a few months.
In the same year we were very successful with our male dog "Gustl von der Köhlertanne", called "Grizzly". He showed so much play-drive, was so easy to train, had such a hard grip in protection, that we took him to SchH3 with the age of 22 months. Two months later he passed the breeding board with an excellent Koer-Report.