Facebook page.
I was looking for a dog that would be good with the step-kids, protect the people and property, livestock and be happy with the active lifestyle that we lead (or used to lead before we started remodeling. Now we just do manual labor all the time.) Years ago, I had met some Dutch Shepherds at a horse breeding facility that we frequented and I loved them. The owners told me a story of how their long hair DS woke them up one night to warn them that a mare was having problems while foaling. That same dog used to run alongside the young stallions in the field and was absolutely joyous. I was hooked, so the second I had a lifestyle that would support that kind of dog, I got one.
In retrospect, I should have learned a little more about what kind of dog to choose but I think I might not have understood if I didn't already own one. I should have read between the lines when the trainer I bought her from said she would be a "challenging dog." I wanted a dog I could do some sort of competition event with. I am really interested in protection work but I would have settled for agility or even lure coursing. Chaos would have none of that. She's high energy, even for a DS and has a hard time focusing but I think maturity is helping that. at 9 months old when I got her, she would get out of control when other dogs were around. She's beyond social. She's started her bite work and was showing up the GSD's that were purchased for police work but she just didn't seem mature enough to continue down that road if we were all going to live comfortably in the house together. I'm not far from Dave Deleissegues and have heard good things about him so I'm thinking of checking him out, now that she's older.
The biggest problem: I absolutely adore her and while she likes me just fine, she loves my husband best.
When he is around, she takes orders from only him. She breaks my heart. I keep threatening to get another DS but my husband made me promise to wait until we move to the ranch full time. He's right of course but I've been cruising all the links I've found in this forum and checking out the dogs and puppies for sale. You know, just window shopping 
but if I found the right dog...Anyway, enough about me. I'm going back to reading older posts about all of you.
I tried to post a photo of Chaos but apparently the files are too big. I'm not sure how to make it smaller but when I do, I'll put up some photos.
Cheers,
Marsha
Judith Van Neerland Dutch Shepherds 
