# Border Collie x German Shepherd pup Kessel



## jersey_gray (Dec 8, 2011)

Kessel just joined our family a few days ago. Mama is a Border Collie, father is believed to be the neighbor's German Shepherd.  Based on puppies appearances and that they saw the German Shepherd by the shed mama dog was in, I'd say he's the daddy. All the pups had hints of Shepherd and most of them were very German Shepherd in looks and coloring. Mama was a sweetheart of a dog. The pups were all very social, confident puppies. There was a tricolor male that was just stunningly handsome (truly gorgeous pup) and the only one that really had a "collie look" to him-made me think of Lad (Albert Payson Terhune books). Him and the male with German Shepherd mask were my favorites but we wanted a female. Litter of seven but only two females. I wanted to meet the whole litter just to see all the temperaments and that they all looked healthy. Nicely for us the puppy my husband liked best was the less aggressive female which is what we were wanting. Less aggressive/more docile temperament. It's just nice that the puppy with the temperament we wanted was also the one that reminded my husband of his childhood dog. Kessel's around nine weeks old so just a baby. 

We put our one dog down just a month ago. He just wasn't safe around our one year old and four year old. I chose not to even try to rehome. My opinion is there are to many nice tempered dogs that don't bite that get put down simply for lack of a home, taking a potential home from one of those dogs for my resource guarding fear biter was not okay. What I hadn't expected was my big dog to just age ten years virtually overnight. She's about eight years old so she is an older girl, especially considering she's a 100 lb lab mix, but she charged the fence with Barley every day before. I hope Kessel will get her young again once Kessel's a bit bigger. With the help of glucosamine and possibly some pain management. It's painful to watch my big dog gimp around. She will be visiting the vet in the next month to see about what can be done (I'm thinking it's probably arthritis and some sort of pain med to make her comfortable). All my animals are middle-aged or older. A realization that just sneaks up on you even though it's been glaringly obvious for however long.

I had been keeping an eye out for a n older dog to be Amy's friend. I prefer getting grown dogs or older puppies (like a year old or older). But when I saw the breed mix listed for this litter I wanted to check them out. This is the part ya'll won't like. Kessel came from a farm. There was the old Border Collie (their working dog) and also a young Lab mix. They were put in a shed when they went into heat but the German Shepherd managed to break in. Those Lab mix puppies were something else. The craziest coloring and HUGE, as in Mastiff mix huge (mama Lab mix was medium-sized, same size as the Border Collie), with a really different texture to their coats. The German Shepherd definitely appeared to have fathered the Border Collie pups but those two Lab mix puppies appeared to have been fathered by a Mastiff or an Akita, just huge puppies-three times the size of the Border Collie's puppies. I can't even describe the color but I've never seen anything like it before. Wish I'd taken a pic of them to put on here to see what breed guesses people would have. Enough about them, I am very glad we went to check out the puppies. Kessel is a great puppy.


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