For the Love of Dog! What have I done?

First I got the dog.  Then I read the background.  Just the opposite of how it should have been done.

Lizzie is a seven-month-old German Shepherd who adopted me because her former owner fell and hurt herself severely enough to preclude being able to care for her rambunctious pet in the near future. I got the call from friends who were responding to the call for a home and who knew I'd been contemplating getting another dog to replace the shepherd I had to put down last summer.

This is the fifth German Shepherd I've owned in my adulthood.  I am no stranger to the breed.  I've gone through obedience school, invisible fence containment, cage confinement -- the whole routine that protects strangers from the dog and vice versa.

This one, however, is the first one I've owned that's not an American-bred dog. Lizzie comes from Austrian stock. Her markings are darker, her hair longer, her body sturdier and stronger -- much stronger -- than the Americans.

And according to the information I've just been reading, the European shepherds are much more instinctively protective than the American ones. Great.

She's been here a month.  Count that in four pairs of shoes -- all mine, she prefers things that are mine; one scatter rug; countless real, nylon and rawhide bones, a sadly disfigured chair leg, and innumerable teeth marks because that's how she pulls my hand to her so that I'll rub her belly. And two other casualties: the collie and collie-mix who already live here and who are the targets of Lizzie's torment.


Forgive me, Dog. I forgot. I forgot about GSD pups, and what big teeth they have, and what big ears they have, and what big feet with strong claws, and how they love to play ... I'm contemplating getting a couple of those padded sleeves the trainers wear when they train protection dogs. At the very least, they'll cover the bruises on my arms.  And for sure we're signing up for obedience classes.

Oh, yes, one more thing. I adore her.