German Shepherd Breeder

[jsn_mooney]

Greetings,
I looked through previous posts and didn't come up with much, I am looking for a quality German Shepherd puppy for a family pet. I have searched online and found a couple within a couple hours of central Indiana that look very promising. Just wondering if somebody on here has any first hand experience good, bad, or otherwise.
Thank you in advance,
Jason

 

[foszoe]

https://midwestgermanshepherds.com/

It was worth the drive north for us. We ended up with a well behaved GSD. We put money down on our litter first which will guarantee you pick of the litter. Then we went to visit the litter at 4 weeks and let them all run around playing while we observed them and did some informal Volhard testing on the pups. We went back at 7 weeks and formally Volhard tested the pups and made our selection then picked him up at 8 weeks.

I highly recommend Volhard Puppy aptitude testing, making notes as you go, and videotaping it when you do. Then discuss the videotape with your helper on the tests. We did and we noticed things on tape that weren't in our initial notes. Enough to decide that the 2 who scored close together out of the litter were actually more different than we originally thought.

In the end I didn't get the pup we thought we would from our observations at 4 and 7 weeks, and yes that pup would have won on looks alone between the two, but we committed to selecting the best pup by objectively testing them. I am glad we did.

Highly recommend securing pick of the litter and testing the pups. You may wait a few more months but you will be glad we did. We were 3 litters removed because that is what we did but we got the sire/dam pairing we wanted based on their papers.

 

[jsn_mooney]

Thank you for the insight, I have heard good things about that kennel online- I will reach out to them.
I really appreciate the information about the puppy testing, I was aware of it but will definitely get that figured out. I have read several places that is the way to go.

 

[foszoe]

Thank you for the insight, I have heard good things about that kennel online- I will reach out to them.
I really appreciate the information about the puppy testing, I was aware of it but will definitely get that figured out. I have read several places that is the way to go.

i checked my notes. It was 7 weeks when we formally tested not 6. I have done the same testing since the 90s. Worked out well for me on 3 labs and this GSD. It helps you identify personalities very well. You may end up with a pup that wasn't your first pick based on looks but after 6-12 months, you'll like looks of the one you have and over the course of 10-13 years, you'll realize picking one based on personality works out much better than other people who pick based on it came right to me! or its so pretty! Kind of like getting married

 

[jsn_mooney]

I 100% agree that disposition and intelligence trump a pretty face every time- and that goes for more than just puppies.