Just had to share the news that my gorgeous Sasha (13.5 weeks old GSD) has her ears up today for the first time! I have to laugh at myself, running around taking pictures like a baby taking its first steps!!!

Here is the link
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.162943657139738.25557.100002723144894&type=1&l=c0ba51289f

I want to thank you all again for the advice and support you've given. It is about a week since I last wrote, and Sasha is like a different dog. She is actually a delight to deal with. Through the tethering and a better focus on marker training (loading) she has really calmed down and is attentive. Our bond is now really strong and I forsee her developing into a wonderful dog, and us working well together.

Also I've mentioned before that she appears totally fearless, well I have further justification for that opinion now...

I live on a farm and a friend of mine had cause to discharge a rifle the other day - I knew this in advance and was watching Sasha carefully to see how she would react. Well most animals actually start at this because it is so loud and disturbing a sound (and predictably the house horse and my other dog both did) - not Sasha... She just looked up in curiosity and then trotted over to the gate to check out what was going on > bullet proof or what?

She is shaping up to be a great dog, I'm just worried that I won't be a skilled enough trainer for her...

Beautiful girl! She'll grow into those ears in no time.

Dogs adapt to our shortcomings and learn to live with them. If you haven't found a mentor yet, I suggest it! I recently found one and he's helped open doors on Radar's training that I didn't even know where there. Talk about feeling foolish when I kept talking about how well our training was going....

Thanks Samantha :-)

I'll try, problem is that I live alone in a pretty isolated rural area. All the dogs around are working cattle dogs, and they treated completely differently. I'm going to some obedience training in a town about an hour away in February, and I know one of the leaders has a shepherd she competes with, so I'm looking forward to that.

Merry Christmas to you :-)

What a beautiful pup!

And don't worry about your skill level, dogs put up with a lot from us!