Olderhill German Shepherds - South Africa

All our pups are born in our house and stay there for the first three weeks. It gets very crowded sometimes! but at least that prevents puppies from getting squashed by their mothers. It's also a good start for the pups to have close contact with us. They are very aware of their surroundings from birth. For example, we often put each of the pups on a teat so that no-one misses out on a meal, and already in their first few days they learn to recognize our smell and come to our hands for food. Between 2 and 3 weeks they start leaving their 'nest' to go to the toilet on newspaper. When they move out of our house they go into thatched-roofed houses with grass and sand runs outside and blankets and newspaper inside. From about 4 weeks we give them toys to play with and have play sessions with them.

When we train them they can do fetching and sit and down and stand on command at 6 weeks, find hidden toys at 7 weeks, and do tracking by 8 weeks. Teaching them is really easy and takes less than 5 minutes a day. (See puppy training.) We deworm our pups from 2 weeks of age and continue every second week until they're 12 weeks. They are vaccinated at 5,  8 and 12 weeks. To protect them from distemper between 9 and 12 weeks, which ordinary vaccines don't, we give them a measles and distemper vaccine.

Masterton German Shepherds - Queensland Australia

My parents had Alsatians (as they were referred to in the olden days) back in Britain when I was only a child before moving to Australia and unfortunately the one we had in Britain was not allowed to come with us because of the Import Ban into Australia in those days.  That was a very difficult time for my parents having to leave her behind. 

Eventually my parents just had to get another one in Australia and there it all began.  Mum and Dad "dragging us kids along" to dog shows where of course we eventually got "the bug" and after all it was in the blood.  I was allowed to own my very first German Shepherd in the 60's and loved the obedience side of things rather than the showing so did obedience with her and actually took her through to CD which was a thrill for me only being very young in those days. 

Masterton Kennels was registered as a kennel name back in the 70's when along with my mother and sister the kennel name was decided after numerous rejections of other name choices by the NSWCCC.  On our 24th attempt the NSWCCC allowed us the name of "Masterton" which my Dad had picked after Steve Masterton had just won a major car race.  It was a case of we needed one more name for our list so we just threw it in and bingo we were allowed that one.  When my parents and I moved up to Queensland in the 80's the kennel name was transferred into my name. 

In 1985 we moved to Childers in Queensland.  What a beautiful countryside it was when seen for the first time.  There had been plenty of rain and everything was green.  It isn't always nice and green because there is never enough rain to maintain the lovely land.  This is what it looks like from above.

 

 

All puppies that are kept get campaigned in the show ring with the hope that they have the goods to become Australian Champions.  Numerous animals have achieved their Australian Championship titles with the most prestigious one being Crossfire Claim To Fame "Trapper" who became an Australian GRAND Champion.  Trapper actually being bred by my sister and was kindly given to me as a present.  What a wonderful gift.   All breeding stock have been x-rayed for hips and elbows and I have received the Gold Medal from the German Shepherd Club of Australia for breeding over 50 animals that have achieved their pass for hips.