Maggie's Farm

Yes but they are like a German Shepherd on Crack. They NEEEEED a serious 8 hour job. Plus the handler can't be anything short of alpha.

Also invest in at least 1 month of training with a qualified, well researched handler in the breed. Regardless of if you get a wee pup or an older dog. Get that basic obedience, recall, situations including gun shots / fire works and any kinks worked out professionally. You need it to be rock solid. If adopting you will have no control over puppy socialization, it will be a done deal and likely you will have issues to work with that might be life long. When getting any breed like this it makes a huge difference if you control the imprinting and socialize age 8 weeks to 18 months. It makes a huge difference to socialize with at least 500 - 800 different people before 6-8 months. Once your dog gets to 6 months it's big and it scares people so socialization will be that much harder than the sqeeeeee! puppy phase. Also you may want to contract a serious handler to select your pup. Let that person test for temperament so you don't get attached to the fearful one with the coat color you like. Puppies are hard in that they have infinite energy and teething will be a trial (the are called maligators for a reason) but the ability to shape the epiginetics at that stage for your dog's temperament are unparalleled. Good luck. We had a visiting Mal (trained in narcotics) for a long week end and I can tell you that a baby GSD is a vacation compared to an 18 month, high energy, working grade Mal. Oh we had activities, but that wasn't enough. End of the week end I was slumped in a yard chair while the Mal ran around playing "olympic ribbon gymnastics" with some insulation pulled out of my barn from god knows where. Then he picked the apples off my trees.

Thanks Gringo. I just want to point out that I was supervising our visitor. Mostly, I mean dead in a chair is still a kind of supervision. Can you imagine if he'd been alone?