Ashamed because there are people, military families to be precise, out there that not only abandon their pets in wilderness but they leave them behind in their old apartment and don’t care whether they are found or not. It is a big issue at every single duty station over here in Germany and it’s not only a problem in Germany. It’s a problem all over the world (Abandonment of pets puts strain on Okinawa Shelters), wherever you find US Military Families!

To name a few:

Pets abandoned by U.S. troops face death Georgia, USA

Is that what the US Military Families stands for? Are these the values? Leaving pets, so called “Family Members” behind to die?

Seriously?

Or you abandon it in the wild?

You know… it’s illegal to do that over here, right? You know that you are actually breaking German Law by abandoning a pet and the worst thing is, that you ruin it for the ones who are responsible.

German Shelters don’t adopt to military families for a reason and to be honest, I understand why they won’t adopt out to them anymore. To many adopted pets and then left them behind. In the short time I have lived in military housing I’ve seen dogs being abused, crated for the entire day, only taken out to pee and poop and other than that they’ve been locked down in the house all year around. Pets being mistreated with an electric shocker which is illegal in Germany as well and sometimes I wonder why some of you people even have pets!

Seriously, why do you have pets if you only take them out to pee and poop, why do you adopt a dog if all you do is to leave him behind anyway? WHY?

If you can’t care for a pet, don’t get one!

News stories like these make all of us look bad and with all of us I mean everybody, including foreign born spouses.

Think twice before you not only abandon your pet but break German laws!

We got up around 4.30AM.
My husband checked his luggage and that he’s got everything he needs. I put Yukons vaccination record, the money and health certificate into a ziplock bag and he put it into his backpack. Around 5.30 we packed the car. I took Yukon on a short walk so he could pee and poo for the last time before the airport.
Mom drove us.
The Autobahn was completely empty and we arrived at the Airport within an hour.
We handcarried the kennel and used an elevator to get up to the Terminal. We put the kennel on one of those luggage trolleys and I had Yukon on the leash. He behaved very well but he knew that something was up. Something unusual. He was all excited.
When we arrived at the Check In one of the ladies said that the kennel was too small for Yukon and we are talking about an XL German Shepherd Kennel. A Kennel that costs over 200 Euro in Germany and was more expensive than shipping the dog itself.

He could walk comfortably in and out. He laid comfortably down, had enough space to turn around and sit but they still said it’s too small and got a Vet. They even wanted us to buy a bigger kennel, the ones that you usually ship St.Bernards with, to ship him from Frankfurt to Chicago. In Chicago my husband would have had to put the XL kennel together and switch kennels because the connecting flight didn’t allow XXL kennels. On top of that we had to take off the collar and I asked the Vet if she was serious and expected my husband to get the dog out of the kennel, without a collar, and put him into another kennel (at an international airport) so he could be shipped to the final destination.

Come on, these kennels are big enough for a German Shepherd. What kind of kennel do they expect for a Great Dane if a German Shepherd sized Kennel isn’t good enough for a GSD anymore?

Also, I personally think that it is too dangerous to have a dog in a kennel, on an airplane and international airport without a collar.

In the end we were allowed to ship Yukon in his XL crate but they told us that the other two dogs would have to be shipped in XXL crates. We are talking about bitches. Two bitches that are smaller than the male and Yukon isn’t even that big. My youngest bitch doesn’t even have 70 pounds yet and they want me to put her into a crate that’s made for a St.Bernard or Great Dane?

What happened to common sense?

Anyhow, our friend L. picked both, hubby and Yukon up from Syracuse. Both safely arrived. They then got in contact with Chris from DFDK9, who picked him up to take him in for a couple of days until hubby can move into our new home.

Since I have to get two XXL kennels (which will be more expensive then shipping the dogs) I can’t even fly into Syracuse. I have to fly to NEWARK and then rent a car to drive all the way to Ft.Drum all by myself.

Even though we’ve planned everything beforehand we had to change plans, once again.
So Indra and Zenzy are going with me and Judge will join us in January since he’s still with his breeder.

I hope that Yukon will recover from the entire thing and behave well at Chris’s place. 🙂

We are officially moving out of our apartment. I am in the middle of cleaning and packing up the rest of the stuff that goes to my parents place. I didn’t realize that we had still so much stuff left. Also, I can’t believe what all we are throwing away because we couldn’t ship it to the States and nobody else seems to want it.

Anyhow, I got to go. While I am glad to get out of the neighborhood I will sure miss some of the people. I made some great friends, I loved the apartment but that’s military life I guess.

I bought one of those websticks, so I have mobile internet while I am at my parents and I can keep ya’ll updated on whats going on.

Hope you all have a great weekend. It’s been years that I have lived with my parents, I even get to sleep in my old room and have the full upstairs apartment to myself and for my husband. It’s much better than staying in a hotel and being bored the whole time plus the dogs and I will be re-united again. I missed them so much. They’ve been staying with my parents for almost two weeks now.

Anyhow, I have to get going. Talk to you all later. 🙂

After two months of searching via the internet I finally found a community that is leasing and renting homes out without a size or breed restriction. When they sent me a message that they have no size or breed restrictions and of how many pets you can bring, I was literally doing a happy dance. Their leasing company is already approved via Housing and I found them actually via AHRN. I truly consider myself lucky. Anything and everything else was either a Scam from somebody travelling outside the States to go searching for oil in Africa (yeah right) to brokers in London. At one point I was wondering if Watertown had any residents left at all because everybody seemed to go to Africa or London. Or I ran into size restrictions of 50lbs or Shepherds were denied along with Rottweilers, Dobermans and Pitt Bulls.

All we have to do is to fill in the application and get approved by them. Hopefully we don’t run into problems as in “No places available.” That would suck.

I also got some more info about shipping the dogs. Holy Shemoly. Shipping them all three together will cost us around 1800 Euros. The problem is that Yukon can’t be shipped to the next closest airport because of the kennel size. The cheapest way would be to ship them all at once but I’d have to pick between NEWARK and JFK. I was told by several people that it’s going to be a “lot of fun” to drive to either one of them airports to pick them up, especially during wintertime but if I had to pick one, NEWARK would be the better choice.

Next week our household goods will be picked up and then I’ll be without a computer, TV, Car… pretty much anything.

Zenzy is already with my parents, Yukon, Indra will join her in a little while too.
We have not heard anything from the embassy yet and I don’t even know how they’ll contact us. Will they send a letter? Give us a call? Send an email? I assume they’ll send a letter which can take a while if they do so via the APO Box, or do they send it to the regular mailbox outside the building? I have no clue… the uncertainty is stressing me out because I don’t know if I can actually fly with hubby or if I have to stay behind. I HATE THAT! I hate when I don’t know what is going on. UUUUGH!

The following video shows how much easier it is to go through a door or into a house when the dogs know basic obedience. Usually I make them sit in front of the door, then I open the door, let them walk through and have them sit so I can take off the leash. Then they walk up the stairs by themselves and have to sit right in front of our apartment door too.
They also have to listen from the distance. Another thing that is important to me is to be able to single out the dogs.

Some trainers don’t like when you use the name in front of the command (Indra sit!)but I do it anyway. Especially on hikes it comes in handy and with three dogs it’s so much easier when they will listen not only to the command itself but when you can single out each dog and make them do whatever you want.

As you can see, it’s nothing special. It’s basic obedience and the command “Sit” is something every dog should know.

It’s the easiest command to teach and the reward in this case is the door. If they horse & goof around all you have to do is to wait. In the beginning they didn’t want to sit either. But I practiced every day and sometimes I had to wait a couple of minutes before I could open the door. One dog alone is not a problem at all but all three of them together… they work each other up. Especially when we are on the way out. They are so excited that all they want is to get out the door. Use that! Make them obey a command before they get out the door, the door itself and to get out is the reward and I guarantee you, it will make life much easier to have dogs that patiently sit at the door because (if you live in an apartment complex like me) you never know if the front door downstairs is open or not.