Adopt a GSD

Frankie (was called Sparky)

 

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This young man is a delight, takes a little while to come to strangers, but absolutely lovely, playful 2 year old, inoculated, just been neutered.  Very keen to learn with pocket full of treats.  Needs training on, but responding really well to obedience.

If you would like to offer Frankie a loving, caring home, then please contact us.

Update from Frankie’s fosterer: Frankie has settled well in his foster home and is making good progress. He’s now used to wearing a Halti and now walks calmly on a lead.

A further update from Frankie’s fosterers:

We have now been fostering Frankie for 6 weeks. He is highly intelligent, energetic and full of fun. He loves toys of any sort, balls, sticks, is a demon swimmer and runs like crazy. He is quick to learn, comes to call and knows most of the basic commands.

He lives with a male GSD 4 years old, a Sealyham cross terrier 2 years old and a female Welsh Border Collie 11 years old. He gets on well with all of them, although he was initially jealous at times. He is improving greatly with this.

His only failing stems from being wary of people unknown to him. When introducing him to new people it is better to ignore him and let him come to you, and then everything is fine. We have found he tends to jump up at folks he is unsure of and this leads to further misbehaviour (usually mouthing and puppy type nipping). We have now received a spray collar from the Charity and we are confident we can stop this problem.

Frankie is a delight to be with, a loving and friendly dog.

Richard and Frankie met recently with Jayne Waddilove (Animal behaviourist) at St George’s Playing Fields for her to give her thoughts on Frankie. There should be an article including pictures  in ‘Excite’ the Exeter free Newspaper shortly.   The following is Jayne’s report.

“Richard, Frankie and I met at the playing fields to discuss and observe Frankie’s boisterous behaviour, including jumping up and nipping people, recall and general social skills.

1) I showed Richard the Dog Back Pack and I put it on Frankie the idea behind this to give him a job to do and something to focus his energy on along with draining his energy levels quicker whilst exercising. The back pack would normally contain some weights i.e. tins of beans, evenly distributed on either side and not too heavy. Frankie is typical of his German Shepherd nature and has a high prey drive - that is, he is very ball focused and loves the chase with things that move!

2) The Halti seems to be working well and stops him pulling on the lead. I used a simple method of having a squeaky toy in my pocket to assist with his recall as he loves toys so much, this also proved to be very effective and I understand from Richard he is still using this method and all his dogs come back very rapidly!!

3) With the jumping up problem, I advised Richard that Frankie needs a lot of socialising and being in busier environments to show him how he should be behaving, i.e. ignoring people and being calm around them. Dogs can only learn this through exposure to these situations, so Richard was planning to take him to the Quay in Exeter and walking him calmly along there where he will inevitably meet dogs/people/joggers/cyclists etc. - all the things he needs to be experiencing. I advised Richard in this situation to keep Frankie moving close to his side, wear the back pack and have a calm assertive energy which will help the dog to remain calm. Hopefully, the more he sees the less excitable he will be.

Richard has found out since our meeting that Frankie has not had the best start in life and been placed in approximately 3 animal shelters and 3 homes. At two and a half this dog has been pushed from pillar to post which can be very unsettling.

He has possibly been beaten in the past as shows signs of being head shy when approached by strangers’ hands over his head - this is the problem Richard has been having with the jumping and nipping at people. If Frankie is ignored on a first introduction, he behaves perfectly. When I met him I didn’t take any notice of him, I was calm and assertive and he was very good, had a little sniff and basically ignored me. Dogs use their nose as a way of greeting, people use their hands - dogs should be ignored on introductions and allowed to sniff but not touched. This is how they do things and unfortunately as humans we tend humanise our dogs - they need to express themselves as dogs do, not as people do!

Frankie is a very biddable, intelligent dog and has a lovely nature and an awful lot to offer the right home. He is very keen and quick to learn and has great potential with someone willing to dedicate some time to him, as has been proved to Richard in the last 3 months, who is doing a great job with him and working hard to help him with his issues.”

Frankie is now in his new home.