Dutch Shepherd Forum

Hello Everyone, We (Bryan and I---Bridget), have added a Dutch Shepherd (mix?) to our family back in October. He is 7-8 months old, about 60lbs and Energetic!!! This is our first puppy and although we feel he is doing quite well...house broken, relatively obedient, learns commands quickly and easily....any suggestions on how to best develop and work with this breed are welcome!
Any thoughts on what he may be mixed with are also welcome...the vets think he may have a little lab in him but otherwise DS was the consistent ruling. His ears are mostly floppy but he tries real heard to stand them up and his tongue has a couple black spots similar to what I have seen a few of you post on here. What do you think?

Welcome! handsome boy you have there

Ideas about how to work and develop this breed? Train and do things. Take some classes, try out some sports (agility, Rally obedience, fly ball, herding, nosework...whatever interests you enough to work at it).

Welcome to the board!
I'm just on the other side of the fl/ga border in valdosta. Looks like a stout little guy. My pup, Harvey, is about the same age and creeping up on 50lbs finally but we both go running and are pretty active, I've discovered this minimalizes the high energy that his previous owners couldn't handle. They were more of the, "come home and watch tv" types so a high drive dog wasn't too compatible.

As for the ears, Harvey gets a lot of chew time with his kong toys (strengthens the muscles that help hold the ears up not to mention prevents him from destroying too much haha) and I toss some knox gelatin in his food. Gelatin is basically just cartilage so it helps with joint health and helps (arguably) with the development of the cartilage in the ears. I researched it a lot before beginning to add it to his diet but it seems to have helped.

Manstrom wrote:...and I toss some knox gelatin in his food. Gelatin is basically just cartilage so it helps with joint health and helps (arguably) with the development of the cartilage in the ears. I researched it a lot before beginning to add it to his diet but it seems to have helped.

My GSD's breeder recommended that. I didn't need it, but would've tried it.

We did the gelatin supplementation with our Ridgebacks due to the changes of later joint issues and my 12 year old male was running around with the joints of a pup till his dying day.

Thanks so much for the input so far! He is starting to slim down a little now that he's more active...he had a small shoulder issue, according to the vet, he was growing too quickly and it was affecting the shoulder jt. They had us start giving him a glucosamine substance and it seems to be doing the trick! It also appears that he has really discovered his nose this week, so we've been researching nosework a bit more and may try to get him involved more in something like this. Also looking into agility activities.
As for the gelatin, I still need to research this but it sounds like it's being consistently recommended with shepherds so my interest is piqued. Thanks again for the input and if you think of anything else, any advice is welcome!!

Welcome!

K9 nosework is a blast. Your DS will probably love it (and do well at it, which is very reinforcing for all involved )