These are photos of the German Shepherds who have lived with us. The above photo is of Tara who died in September 2005 aged 12. The photo below is of Blue, two at the time of writing.

Personally, there is no better dog than the German Shepherd. They are an intelligent and faithful dog, they are alert and watchful and can be trained to a high degree given time and patience. They can be quite aggressively defensive and one thing Tara and Blue have in common was the way they would treat letters and parcels delivered to our house...they'd rip them to pieces.

The defensive nature of the German Shepherd makes them naturally good guard dogs, but they can also be undesirably defensive outdoors. Blue has, on occasion, made himself unpopular with a few locals by scaring the living daylights out of them, just stopping short of sending them to A&E. I've quickly learned that as he is a rescue dog and his history uncertain, he has had to be kept on a long leash when out on the fields.