Photo taken by previous owner.
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| Beautiful Isse Photo taken by previous owner. |
Isse's kennel name is Svartågårdens Xcalibur. He came to us as an adult in August 2000. It was a couple of months after we had to put Akilles down and we were really missing having a GSD. A lot of things have happened with Isse since we got him and he has changed, probably for the better. Unfortunately he hasn't changed enough to make him a "normal" dog, there is something that is not "right" with his mental status. Normally, GSD's are easy to work with and learn things very fast – but Isse doesn't learn quickly, in fact, some things he has still not learned.
If I got things right, he was first bought as a puppy by family with no dog experience. This family couldn't handle this lively, stressed GSD, who is friendly with everybody and everything, but still takes a lot to handle. He was given to Securitas, a Swedish security company that uses protection dogs, but he wasn't good enough. They claimed it was because he had no interest in objects and they couldn't get him to bite well enough in protection work. I wonder if his totally crazy behaviour when he sees another dog had something to do with it.... ?
Even though Isse is a very kind dog, owning him has been quite hard, and still is. He gets totally exited when he's expecting something to happen, like going for a ride in the car or even such a normal activity as going for a walk, which we do several times a day.... And this thing with other dogs - I've always wanted a male dog that could co-exist friendly with other males, well this time I got it, but what I didn't want was a dog that thinks other dogs are the most important and the best thing in the whole world. When we meet another dog it is almost impossible to control Isse and this problem has almost caused both me and Martin grey hairs.
His object interest and "fighting spirit" wasn't very high when we got him - as I mentioned above, this was (or at least we were told it was) the reason why Securitas wouldn't have him - but don't think I would give up that easy! I have worked hard on teaching him that objects are FUN, I did it by showing him that objects could be exchanged for treats (meat balls, small pieces of sausage etc). After a while he got really interested and today he has a good object interest and also quite a good bite.
When it comes to deseases, he has cost us quite a lot of money and worry. He had rashes when we got him, with small open wounds on the outside of his tighs. Changing his food to a more nutritious sort, with more fat, made the worst of it go away, and the last of it dissappeard when he got an antibiotic treatment for what we thought was an inflammation in his anal glands. This inflammation however turned out to be perianal fistulas - a disease that is quite common within the GSD breed. He is the third GSD I have owned and all three of them have gotten PF. The treatment has been long and hard, with medication and finally they had to surgically remove the last fistula, but now finally he seems to be ok. But we are well aware of that the PF's can return anytime.
Spring 2002 we decided to neuter him to see if this would have a positive effect on his stress. Unfortunately it didn't do as much good as we had hoped for, but it seems some of the worst stress has dissapeared.
His parents and ancestors:
Karat von der Rolandsburg
f. Odin v Tannenmeise
m. Babsy von der Rolandsburg
gf.Quando von Arminius SchHIII FH IP3
gm.Haesel v Tannenmeise SchHI VH2
Svartågårdens Ystra
f. Xando von den Dolomiten
m. Brazos Shanti
gf.Yago von Wildsteiger Land
gm.Kandi vom Reundorfer See
gf.Ibo vom Bohawald
gm.Uncaba's Connie
More pictures can be found here in the Gallery.
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