Britta is an adorable, happy, and affectionate 16 month old female who her foster mom describes as “a tiny ball of pure German Shepherd Dog energy”.   Britta is a petite girl at only 40 lbs.  We don’t expect her to be bigger than 50-55 lbs when fully grown.  Britta was purchased as an 8 week old puppy online and successfully lived with her owner and his mother for a period of time.  When her owner started traveling for work and then moved in with his girlfriend, Britta reportedly no longer fit in with the family.  Britta’s owner said she became jealous of his girlfriend, started soiling in the house, and was at times growling around his girlfriend.  He called the local animal control officer to surrender her who thankfully called us.  Other than a few initial crate soiling accidents when Britta was adjusting to her foster mom’s schedule, we have not seen any of this behavior.  Britta’s personality has blossomed while in her foster mom’s care.  Like many German Shepherds, she will alert bark when someone comes to the door or walks past the car.  Otherwise, everyone she meets is greeted with excited kisses and butt wiggles.  At 16 months old, Britta is still very much a puppy with lots of energy to burn and she will need continued training to learn how to better control her enthusiasm.  She tends to be jumpy when excited and very sneaky around the dinner table!  She is an extremely smart and attentive young lady who is crate trained and has already learned sit, stay, wait, come, give paw, and down.  She’s getting better at drop it, leave it, and heeling on a leash.  She is very food motivated and sings, jumps, and twirls when she sees her foster mom head for the bag of kibble.  She loves playing fetch and tug in the fenced yard as well as running after water from the garden hose.  She is living with an older male GSD who has been very patient with her energy. Despite the fact that he is more than twice her size, she loves to rough house with him and eggs him on to chase her around the yard.  She has meet two other large male GSDs and a female chihuahua.  She did great with the GSDs, but her energy was too high for the little dog and we suspect this would hold true for a cat as well.  We think she would do best with a larger male dog or as an only pet.  She has also happily met and played with children.

While running fast and furious in the fenced yard, her foster mom noticed that she often keeps both her back legs together in a rabbit-hop fashion.  We had Britta’s vet evaluate her and we have determined that she does have hip dysplasia.  She has been started on carprofen, a fish oil capsule, and a joint chew daily as well as weekly physical therapy sessions to build up her muscles. She is otherwise a healthy girl who was a star patient at the vet’s office.  Britta will need daily exercise avoiding activities with quick starts and stops or a lot of jumping to keep her hips as healthy as possible.  She will also need to maintain a trim weight.  Britta will be a wonderful dog for the person or family willing to put the time and energy into her training and maintaining her hip health.