The German Shepherd Diaries

Chapter Five

Sorry that I missd last week's update!!  Chapter Six will be up ASAP! 

A loud jingle-jangle made me jump.  Ouch!  I whined, trying to get rid of the pain of bumping one’s head against a metal crate.  All of a sudden, I felt itchy around my neck.  I scratched it, and realized I had a chain collar instead of my red one.  Looking around, I saw that there was a shepherd on my left and on my ride side.  I didn’t feel very social at the moment, so I let them be.  A buzzer sounded loudly, and then my crate door opened, with everyone else’s too.  The other dogs were sprinting to the middle of room.  I quickly tried to follow in pursuit, and skidded to a spot in the middle.  Before checking out the dogs around me, I tried to scope out the room.  It was a warehouse, no doubt about it.  It was big, with lots of space and lots of crates.  The female area was probably the same exact thing, right next door, but we probably couldn’t get through.  I turned my eyes back on the dogs in my immediate area.  The alpha male that Allegra was talking about I couldn’t see, so maybe he was somewhere else.  About ten feet away from me, I smelled the scent of Dylan, which I couldn’t get enough of.  It reminded me so much of something, but I couldn’t figure what.  Another mystery for another time, I guess.  It was actually a little hard trying to push through this, and more dogs were coming by the minute.  Some of them were barking like they were old friends.

“Hey, Will, we might be getting better chow than you since we work harder!” jostled one to another.  I finally got through to Dylan and checked out everyone around him.  They all smelled like this warehouse place, so they’d been here for at least a couple months.  One of them approached me and started sniffing me.  I stood rigid as he slinked around.

In a low voice he snarled “Nice to meet you.  We know you’re a friend of Dylan’s, so you’re a friend of ours.  The name’s Hank and this is Ivan, Mitch, Vito, and Titus.”  He nodded his head to each dog as he spoke their names.  Hank cocked his head and murmured “Jack’ll be here soon.”  

Walking from the other side of the room, about twenty puffy blobs walked into view.  I didn’t understand who or what they were.  Dylan leaned over and softly growled to me “Those are the humans who train us.  They wear protective pads to be safe.”

The humans continued to walk closer to the circle of dogs and then stopped.  I couldn’t figure out what they would do next.  They spread out and the first one blew a whistle.  Right away, about twenty or so dogs ran over to that trainer.  Another blew a whistle that sounded different.  More dogs ran over to the person, and all of the humans repeated this.  One thing I noticed was that their whistles were all slightly different.  By that time, Dylan and his group were gone, and it was only me and about five other dogs.  The human in front of us gestured to us to come.  We all knew that command, and scampered towards him.  

He knelt down and roared, “The name’s Joseph, and let’s get this training started!”  Joseph strutted towards a door that opened automatically, and everyone went through.  There were more humans in this area.  Sniffing my small area around me, this grass smelled funny.  I recognized we were on artificial grass indoors.  How strange!  Then I stood still.  There was a new scent in here; no, not one of us but what?  I tilted my head back and breathed in.  There it was!  A Rottweiler was with us!  He trotted over to the human trainer Joseph and sat down right in front of him.  Then, puffy blobs came out.  I took a closer look, and they were not blobs, but humans!  The humans were dressed like that for some type of training I suppose.  Joseph gave a command to the Rottweiler, and the dog bounded up to one of the puffy humans.  His bark made the fur on my back shiver.  He started to attack the human’s arm, which was well protected.  A yell from Joseph rang out, and the Rottweiler immediately stopped.   

That happened several times.  A beginner, like me, was pulled out on the floor.  I remembered that his name was Everett.  He was given a command to start attacking, and he sprang towards one of the humans.  Everett was about to rip up the arm of the human when Joseph shouted.  He paused, looking from Joseph to the puffy human.  Everett slowly backed away and Joseph threw him a chew toy.  After Everett went away into a corner with it, Joseph beckoned another dog to step forward.  Every time, a dog would attack the arm of the human, and Joseph would yell.  The dog would stop immediately when Joseph yelled.  Then, Joseph changed something.  When it was my turn, I approached the protected human.  I lunged out at the arm, and stood fast.  A low, hearty growl rose up in my throat.  The human was swinging his arm around and around, trying to get me off.  

“Enough!” Joseph roared.  At his words I dropped down to the ground and started licking my paws.  He started shouting more.  Joseph shouted once, then blew a whistle.  The Rottweiler bounded up to the attack human yet again and went for the arm.  Joseph started shouting again, but the dog didn’t stop.  When Joseph blew his special whistle, the big dog stopped.  I understood what was happening. Now, instead of waiting for Joseph to shout, we would stop as soon as we heard that whistle.  By the end of the day, I knew I was not the only tired one.  I happily curled up and fell fast asleep.