Well, I'm glad you're dropping by to find out more about me. I was hoping that someone would. I finally got mum to scan in my pictures, so that coming to my site would be worth something. She was really regreting not having started earlier in my life, so that all she would have had to do was add to my site and not write all these pages from scratch at once. But procrastinators always have to pay eventually, and so she did. I don't help by being so cute and posing for picture after picture.

A few things about me... I like to sleep on my back with my feet in the air. It's really cute and gets the humans all oo-ing and ah-ing. I love to play with my tennis ball outside and inside the house. It's so fun to have someone chase you around to get it away from you. I love it! I also LOVE sqeeky toys. Making noise is the way to go! Granted I eventually always destroy all of my squeaker toys, so mama and daddy have to get me new ones. I just got this big fat green toad that squeaks and I've posed for pictures already, so get ready...

When outside, I like to chase bugs too. They move around so quickly and tickle my mouth, so it's fun to eat them. Daddy's always encouraging me to catch them, since he really doesn't like bugs.

I also love bones. Daddy's parents gave Lupa and me this big basted bone for Christmas one year and IT WAS SO COOL! We liked it so much, we didn't even fight over it. You can see us chewing on it in my picture gallery. I also like Nylabones, although not as much as the real thing, but mom won't leave the big bone out for us all the time, so Nylabones fill the void. Granted they did come out with these new edible Nylabones and they're great! Again, we don't get one every hour, so that kinda stinks. I just don't seem to be able to train mom as well as I'd like.

But enough about that and on to what's happened to me in my life and how I ended up with mom and dad. I'm a 3 year old German Shepherd Dog. I was born on April 8, 1999, so my site was put up on the web on my first birthday! Yay! I was born to a German line of GSDs, but I had a little problem, so I didn't make it into any registry. Officially, I don't exist... shhhhh... At 3 months old, when mom and dad adopted me, I weighed only 12 pounds, which for a GSD is a problem. My breeder suspected that I had megaesophagus and tried to get me adopted out rather than putting me to sleep. I really appreciate that, since I really like my life. Since mom was a veterinary student at the time, my breeder was quite thrilled to let her have me for free and so was I! (ha! ha! ha! free! that's funny!) I was especially thrilled when I found out that dad was going to be my main buddy, since mom was on externship at that time. I spent my first 2 weeks in my family with daddy and Lone Star (one of my cats), so I bonded to daddy for life. Mom came back and then I had to start behaving like a good dog, so no more destructive behavior from me. As for the whole megaesophagus thing, it turned out that if I had it, I grew out of it. When I first came here, I had to eat and drink from a raised bowl and daddy held me in his lap upright for 10 minutes after each one of my 4 daily meals. But after a while and no regurgitating, we decided that we'd stop with all those Shennanigans and I did fine, so life is good. I am smaller than I probably could have been if mom and dad had gotten to me sooner, but at 75 pounds right now, I'm still a pretty big dog.

Of course, since I didn't have that problem anymore I had to come up with a new one (this is where that whole "free" thing is funny). I stood in Lupa's way while she was chasing by the fence and she tripped over me at the end of August 1999, spraining my right front wrist. That hurt! So I was in a splint for 4 days, and after it came off it turned out that some of my tendons where stretched or broken, so I had to be in a cast for 4 weeks and then in a splint for 2. After those 6 weeks in a cast and splint, my tendons had healed and mom had learned really well how to apply a straight splint. Of course, since I was so young, mom and my orthopedic surgeon were worried that one of my growth plates might have been injured near the wrist, since the sprain was so serious. And just to be the difficult dog that I am, one of them was injured, and I had to have surgery to fix my leg. Mom and dad call me a gimpy little dog, since I've been limping on my leg ever since my injury. After my pin came out in April of 2000, we were hoping that I wouldn't need to have another surgery and it turned out that I didn't. Yay! I've always limped a little on that leg because I can't extend my elbow all the way (I can't get my leg straight), but my leg doesn't hurt much at all. My orthopedic surgeon said that anymore surgery would probably do more bad than good, so I'll have a little limp for the rest of my life. I feel like one of those people with a shorter leg... but that's okay, since mom and dad love me anyway. Oh yeah, and my leg didn't hurt! I still used to run around like a psycho with Lupa barely keeping up.

Of course, since I'm a German Shepherd and I had all this stress in my life, I also got demodectic mange during the time my leg was hurt. Getting dipped for that was all kinds of not fun; I hated it! But now, I'm well over the mange and it's been years since my last dip. I did get used to baths, though, so those aren't that big of a deal. And with all the mud in the back yard in our first Dallas home, we did get a lot of baths... Now it's only once every 5 to 6 weeks that I have to go to the spa at mom's work. Miss Amanda takes care of me there and I think she's great!

Of course all problems come in threes. I was also a unilateral cryptorchid, which means that one of my testicles was inside my abdomen. That made neutering me fun for mom and extremely uncool for me. I just didn't think that the whole post-operative razor burn was any fun at all. I was really difficult after the surgery trying to make mom feel bad about the whole thing. I almost had her believing that she messed up during the surgery, but I just couldn't hold a grudge very long. So now they say that I'm neutered. I don't feel any different, but mom and dad seem happier, so what the hay!

My medical problems continued through the years. I had really bad hip dysplasia and ended up with bilateral hip replacement. The one on the right didn't take, so I had it fixed. That didn't work either, so I had the implant pulled and now I have a femoral head ostectomy (FHO) on the right and a hip replacement on the left. Of course, being a little genetically challenged, I also developed bilateral elbow dysplasia, so there's not much cartilage in my elbows. I still get around okay, so what do I care? Oh yeah, and there's that eye thing, pannus, that I got when I was 4 (another GSD disease, are you surprised?), so I have eye drops every other day to keep that under control. Like Loki, I wouldn't be here if mum wasn't a vet. I spent a lot of time with her when I was getting my hip surgeries, so now I love her very much!

I can say that I'm quite happy with my life. I get to spend all of mom and dad's vacations at my grandparents' house playing with Psota. I just love spending time with grandma and grandpa. They spoil me to pieces and I have a great time! Sometimes we all go to Austin to visit with my auntie Anna and uncle Dylan where I get to play like crazy with Adrianne. I really like to play with other dogs. Lupa used to play with me too, but not all the time. She was older and more distinguished, but sometimes she did go nuts outside with me. Then we would run around kicking up dirt till we were both covered in it. One of my cats, Lone Star is good mostly for chasing after, so he's an okay buddy too. Of course, there are times when he's out for blood and then both Lupa and I stay out of his way. The other cat, Loki, is a terror. He and daddy chase me around the living room together all the time. They're really good at catching me too...

Now on to recent news: we moved again!!! Mum and dad found a house in McKinney so that we live real close to mum's work and the kids' school. We have a nice yard and a huge house to run around and play in. This is my fourth home and I like it just as much as the last one. I've already dirtied up all my favorite spots. My crate finally got put away completely, since I wasn't spending any time in it and I'm such a good boy. I've come a long way since before I was 2 and destroying everything in sight when the humans left the house.

Well, I think I'll shut up about me now, since I think I got a bit winded here. Hope you've gotten to know me enough so you'll sign our guestbook and let me know you were here. Then I can visit your site too!