My Silver German Shepherd
The Best Family Dog Who Ever Lived

My Silver German Shepherd, Jason, was seven or eight years old when he got me.

Boy was I lucky. I was dog-less and still missing Gretchen, and here was a wonderful dog who didn't look like her or act like her, but he was still perfect.

Wherever we’d go, people loved him. He seemed to be invited with me everywhere I went and even the neighborhood kids would knock at the door to ask him to come out and play because he was the best family dog they'd ever met.

At the time, I was driving one of the first Honda Civics (’78). I dubbed this little car, ‘the cracker box’. Jason and I had to be careful. If he fell asleep and stretched at all, a foot would end up against the gear shift between the front bucket seats and he would either knock the car out of gear or prevent me from changing gears.

When my arm got tired from throwing the tennis ball for him, and the neighborhood kids weren't knocking at the door to see if Jason could come out and play, I'd tell him to go play by himself. He’d put the tennis ball on the ground in front of him, crouch down like a football player and then hike the ball with his two front feet. It would fly through his back legs and off he’d go to chase it. In the summer, he’d play this game with a pine cone at the lake. The difference in this game was he'd aim his rear at the lake, hike the pine cone and swim after it. Being the best family dog, every family on the beach would take turns throwing his pine cone for him.

I'd heard he wasn't the best family dog when he was younger. He chewed on things – like furniture, when he was left alone for long periods of time. His most famous act was a total demolition of a king size mattress and box springs.

And I know he didn't like being alone for long. Once when I was vacuuming the living room, I didn't know he was at the back door waiting to come in. He fixed that. He just jumped the six-foot back yard fence and came to the front door where I could see him.

One day while we were playing with the tennis ball out back, I heard meowing and thought it was a cat next door. It turned out to be four young feral kittens (nearly 4 weeks old) apparently moved by their mother, but the mother didn't return. I brought the frightened, hungry little things in and made up a box with a heating pad to keep them warm. While I tried to figure out if I had anything in the house I could feed them, they meowed nonstop and Jason kept putting his nose in the box. Finally he laid down next to the box and just looked at me, so I brought them out. They went straight toward him. Being the best family dog in the world, he nuzzled each in turn until they crawled onto his warm body and fell fast asleep.

And here's where I became totally confident that my dog would always look out for me. One Sunday night, we arrived home from the lake well after midnight. I parked in the driveway and got out of the car. Just as I let Jason out of the car, I saw a man running down the street toward us. I froze in a total state of fear and Jason took off running toward that man with a ferocity I had no idea existed in that dog. It happened so fast it was in slow motion. (It’s hard to explain if you've never experienced an event this way.) I realized the man was out jogging and just as Jason began his leap through the air to take the man down, I hollered "Jason!" and he dropped, turned and trotted back to me. Still shaken, the man came up and apologized for scaring us. He lived around the block and worked odd hours so he jogged this late often.

Only once did this dog fail the good dog title, although it was really my fault. I’d worked a 13 hour day and wanted to get him some exercise at the nearest park. It was nearly dark and the park was supposed to be closed. Jason and I walked a bit. Even though there was a leash law, we were alone so I left it in the car. (boo-boo #1). I'd forgotten the tennis ball, so I told him to go find a stick. While he was off in the bushes searching for the right stick, a police officer came up and asked what I was doing in the park. Just then, Jason came trotting up with 'the stick' and dropped it at my feet. Unfortunately it landed word side up. The officer and I read at the same time. It said “NO DOGS” (boo-boo #2). And there sat Jason, tail wagging waiting patiently for one of us to throw the new stick he found. The policeman had a pretty good sense of humor and let me go without a ticket. We never went back to that park.

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