We regret to inform you all that our most beloved German Shepherd, Pepper, died Thursday December 8 2016 at approximately 2:30PM.
This is by far one of the hardest things we've ever had to deal with because she was only eight years old. Our previous German Shepherds, Ginger and Cleopatra, had lived full lives prior to their passing, which is why losing Pepper so early in life is much harder to take! Her loss has torn another hole in our hearts.
Pepper went to her Veternarian for a dental checkup on October 13 2016, and unfortunately came home with a death sentence. Our Veternarian found that she was suffering from “Rubber Jaw” (a weakened jaw due to calcium loss), and that her blood-work indicated advanced Stage 5 Kidney failure. The remarkable thing was at this point in time she had no symptoms at all? We were told that with blood-work like hers most dogs would have already been near death's door, so the prevailing thought was that Pepper might have been born with this condition, or at minimum it had been going on for many years as she was well acclimated to her reduced Kidney function.
With Kidney disease you often don't see any symptoms at all until there is less than 25% Kidney function left, and since she was so well acclimated to her disease it was impossible to accurately predict how it would progress in the future. In any case we changed her over to a K/D diet and began administering Sub-Q fluids, but sadly within weeks the end game symptoms began to appear so it was her time.
Pepper as we understand it was found abandoned in Fresno CA along with a male German Shepherd Dog (GSD), and a puppy with a deformed leg. Pepper had just given birth to a litter and was underweight and hairless at the time. It's likely she was abandoned by a back yard breeder due to the puppy with the birth defect (as was the father), though we'll never know for sure? Fortunately they all made it into the Golden State GSD Rescue group, and Pepper ultimately got to foster with a retired Veternarian in Davis CA on 6 beautiful acres,who eventually got her healthy and began her training as she was relatively untrained at that time. It was here that she honed her amazing SQUIRREL hunting skills as we understand it (Pepper's prey drive knew no limits, and was unabated until the end!).
We had been looking for a GSD locally without any luck after losing our beloved GSD Cleopatra to old age a few months previously, when by chance we happened upon a picture of Pepper on the web. Fate complied as I had a gig coming up in Georgetown CA, so we made arrangements to meet Pepper since we'd be driving right through Davis CA on the way up to Georgetown up in the Sierra Nevada foothills,.
When we pulled into Pepper's foster home we immediately heard her alert (great!), and we went inside to meet her. She was friendly and out going, and when I got down on the floor to greet her on her level it was love at first sight for me. Next, we went out into the yard where Pepper's foster mom said she didn't off-leash recall very well, so I whistled and called her from about 50 yards away and she immediately came to her foster mom's side perfectly. We could only stay a few minutes as we had to get to the gig, so we said we'd call the next day with our answer, but the truth is we only lasted five minutes before calling from the car to say we wanted to give Pepper a last name and forever home!
Since I was also going to be playing at the Eureka Jazz Fest the following week, it was a week later when I picked Pepper up to bring her to her new forever home. I remember Pepper stretching out on our van's rear seat all the way from Walnut Creek where I picked her up, to the San Mateo Bridge. As we approached the San Francisco Bay Pepper jumped up into the passenger seat and stuck her head out of the passenger's window quite excitedly! It's likely she had never smelled that much salt water before coming from Fresno, and soon after that she was home for good!
When Pepper came to our place she was pretty unsure of everything, us, new surroundings etc, so we gave her access to some food and water and left her to explore on her own. Later we invited her up on the couch and the look of happiness/disbelief on her face was incredible. That broke the ice some, but then even later that night when we went to bed we invited her up on the bed too, and then she was really shocked.
In the wild wolf pack the higher ranking pack members sleep closest to the alpha, so it's good for a dog's psyche to be able to do that. Pepper never slept on the bed with us though she would always come up at bedtime and tuck us in by cuddling with us for about 15 minutes, and then again in the morning at breakfast time. Pepper preferred to sleep on either the couch or her own bed out in the living room, so as to better protect our entire den throughout the night as she was an excellent "Schutzhund" ("Protection Dog").
Pepper was a party girl no doubt, and she was always making the scene at various GSD Rescue functions.
“Working the crowd!”
Pepper had never been on inside stairs it seems as the first time I tried to take her downstairs into the garage she absolutely panicked. It took me three trys to finally get her all the way down to the garage via our inside staircase. I don't know why? Maybe previous abuse in a garage or basement, claustrophobia, something as she was fine on the outside stairs?
On our first try we went down a couple of stairs and she just froze and started crying. The next try a few more stairs were reached but the the same reaction. Finally on try three I got her all the way down to the landing where she laid down and cried again (not quite ½ way down), so I put a long lead on her then I went to the bottom of the stairs alone, held up a treat, and finally told her “you really want this treat don't you Pepper?”.
What happened next was funny as she bravely got up, and tiptoed down the stairs like she was walking on hot coals into the depths of Hell, and then took the treat. After all that she ran up and down the stairs like she'd been doing it her whole life and that was that!
“I was just fooling around acting scared, honest!”
Pepper was mostly German Shepherd, but appeared to have some Belgian Shepherd in her too. She was able to go from Level 1 to Level 10 in an instant when we were preparing to go beyond the threshold of the almighty “Front Door”. As we were getting dressed and ready she'd get excited and start dancing near the door turning circles. We're guessing that she never got to go out into the world during the early stages of her life (back yard breeder?), and she kept that trait right up to the end, even when she was very sick.
During the first couple weeks that we had her, we were enjoying coffee at our local Peet's Coffee when Pepper backed out of her collar/leash and bolted towards her new favorite park full of SQUIRRELS. This is the only time ever that her off-leash recall failed as she was perfect every other time going forward. We were fortunate that the women who procures K9's for our local PD was walking out of the police station at just the right time. Our local PD had just retired K9 Nitro (our previous GSD Cleopatra's buddy), and they were in the process of obtaining their new K9 Kilo. The K9 lady was able to stop traffic and get Pepper to halt on the double yellow line in the middle of a busy street where we were able to coral her. It was the allure of her new park's SQUIRRELS that caused her only escape attempt, and it was the first inkling of her outstanding prey drive as well. Thank God she wasn't hit by a car (plus a thousand thanks to our local PD's K9 procurement person for possibly saving her life!).
Pepper loved the beaches at Half Moon Bay as we walked their regularly. Often we'd end our long walks with lunch at the Miramar Beach Inn's outdoor seating area (right down the street on the right). These are one of only two only legal off-leash beaches in San Mateo county, and Pepper was always perfect off-leash here.
Pepper was the first of our GSD's to NOT get skunked, WOO HOO!
Pepper only had one real dog fight during her life with us as she always got along fine with other dogs. Aside from wanting to herd other dogs if they were chasing a ball, Pepper typically just ignored other dogs after a brief meet and greet. On this occasion however this other dog attacked her by biting her rear leg, and then attempting to climb on her back. Pepper quickly pinned him by the throat (and I mean quickly, like in one second!). At that point the other dog's owner jumped in to break it up and he put his body weight on top of Pepper (who had his dog in her mouth). Since we were standing right next to them when it started we stopped it quickly (5 sec?), but afterwards the other dog needed quite a few stitches (nary a scratch on Pepper!). I'm not sure that Pepper intended to really hurt the other dog, or if the other dog's owner's weight on top of her with his dog in her mouth caused his dogs injuries, but in any case we tried to do the right thing and offered to pay his Veternarian bills.
This is where we get PO'd though as after the chump agreed and took our money, he then proceeded to report Pepper to County Animal Control as a dangerous dog even though his dog had attacked Pepper (“*&%&%!”)!
Fortunately we had witnesses to the event that collaborated Pepper's self-defense story, and also the fact that the guy freely admitted to us all prior to the fight that his dog had already had some aggression problems with big dogs in the past. The chump ended up getting the same warning as we did as legally it was considered mutual combat since both dogs were illegally off-leash at the time, though that wasn't good enough for me! Later I took Pepper up to meet the head of Animal Control at his office. There he was able to see her interact peacefully with his shelter dogs, and he said he'd clear her record after reviewing her case.
Pepper's prey drive was legendary, but mostly regarding
SQUIRRELS. Cats and birds were no big deal (she actually fostered
with a cat!), just SQUIRRELS. I've been told that she and her foster
brother would chase them all day in Davis, and fortunately for her
our local parks and hills are well populated with SQUIRRELS as well.
She did get one in our backyard one day as she was parading around
with a dead one in her mouth, along with a very satisfied smirk on
her face, though for all we know a hawk might have dropped it too? In
any case, that SQUIRREL bucket-list item, CHECK!
"GO" was one of Pepper's favorite words (along with food, hungry, treat, love, etc.). We always had a routine to perform when it was getting time to "GO" somewhere. We had to say either "yes, yes, yes, you can go", which garnered a wonderfully happy reaction with Pepper running to the front door and joyfully dancing by spinning circles, OR..., the dreaded "no, you're going to have to stay", which earned us the ears back completely depressed treatment, where she'd lose all that happiness and just lay down and stare at us like we had just crushed the life spirit right out of her.
She always wanted to go with either of us as she just loved to ride in the car or take a walk. I've always believed that "going" is very important to dogs. They measure their status in some ways by accompanying their pack members (their people) on the trip/hunt. With wolves, the highest ranking pack members head out on the hunt while the lower ranking ones stay with the pups and guard the den. I truly believe that dogs that get to routinely accompany their people on trips etc have a better sense of self-esteem (no matter how short), and just to be sure Pepper always went just about everywhere with us.
Pepper hadn't spent much time in cars without being crated, so I had to show her how to ride in one, and stay in one alone. We loaded Pepper and myself in the back of Linda's car, and Linda drove us around our local hills as I showed Pepper how to brace herself and lean into the turns etc. She was a fast learner and got it down pat in a few minutes. Soon she was so good at car riding that she would sit in the front seat if we were alone, or on anyone's lap if the front seat was occupied. This was ok on surface streets, but we always put her in the back when on the freeway for safety's sake unless traffic was light.
To teach her to stay in the car or van in a parking lot, I went to our local Peet's Coffee that had a reflective film on it's glass front doors, so when I was inside I could see her but she couldn't see me. I parked the van near that front door and went inside and Pepper immediately started to cry and try to climb out of the partially open driver's window. Next I'd open Peet's front door and correct her, and go back inside and repeat the exercise until she remained calm when I was out of sight. It took a few hours of training for her to really get comfortable with me out of sight, but from that point on she was a perfect copilot!
A Bond Made In Heaven
Pepper and I got along famously, but Pepper's real love was Linda. I believe Pepper had been abused by a man early on as she was always more distrustful of men, and I had to work extremely hard to overcome that. Pepper worked for and submitted to me quite well, and showed me lots of affection and respect, but she just lit up the room when Linda came in! It was beautiful to witness the deep bond between those two!
If any of you haven't experienced the pure unconditional love that can exist between man and dog, then we strongly urge you to do so. It is one of the purest and most fulfilling relationships that can be had on this Earth, and that's how it has been since the dawn of human history.
