Hi All! My hubby and I brought home a 4 year old female GSP on sunday! We are calling her Bailey. We have had dogs growing up, but this is our first dog together. We will officially adopt her this weekend from the rescue that saved her from a home where she was skinny and chained outside. She has since been brought to a good weight (57 lbs) I have not measured how tall she is yet, but am told she is big for females of her breed.

One of the qualities I was looking for in a dog was a good running partner, and Bailey certainly is that! 

She is overall a well behaved dog, just needs to learn basic obedience. 

I look forward to learning lots more about the GSP breed, and have already fallen in love with this sweet girl.

Thanks for reading!

-Meg

Welcome to the forum and thanks so much for getting a GSP out of a bad situation.

Yes they make awesome running partners.  My older GSP has been running with me for almost 7 years now (she will be 9 soon).  And I have a second one who has now started running with me too.

And of course, pictures are always welcome.  Would love to see a photo of her.

Roz.

 Congratulations!  What a wonderful thing you have done. Such a lucky dog!!!!!!

Binni is 12 months old and weighs 62 lbs. She doesn't have an ounce of fat on her. Her mom is big also. She doesn't realize how big she is. She still snuggles like a little puppy.  She challenges me EVERYDAY!  Have to keep my eye on her.  Very smart, that girl!

Best of luck to you

Went to the vet yesterday for a check-up and have her very long nails cut (which they couldn't b/c the quick is all the way to the ends! So we will be walking/jogging on concrete to wear them down and then see if they can cut them when we go back in 2 weeks to do a recheck on her bladder infection she had when we got her.) She actually weighs in at 64 lbs and the vet said she should not be any skinnier or fatter. So she really is a big girl. I will see if I can get her to stay still long enough for some good pics of her tonight.

Her 3rd night with us was very good. She was crated in our room the first 2 nights, then we decided since she had been good (only whined the first 30 min or so, then slept and no accidents) we would try having her sleep on her own bed. She laid right down and went to sleep and stayed there all night. Her foster had allowed her to sleep in bed with her, but we are choosing to have a no dogs on the furniture policy. Suprisingly Bailey has been very understanding and barely attempted the furniture.

We are looking forward to taking her to obedience classes. We don't hunt (yet...we do sporting clays and rifle target practice, so hunting could be a possibility someday), but I still would like to train her to be "whoa-broke" and eventually have her safe off leash with an e-collar, and know she will come back when I call and stop chasing when I say whoa.

I'm sure you all will see some posts from me in the training forum soon. I've never trained a dog anything other than "sit", and my only other training experience comes from horses, and it's not quite the same .

Hubby is pretty adament about no dogs on the furniture. She also would take over our bed with her size! If I sit on the floor with her she tries to climb in my lap, it is pretty comical.

We live in the Metro Detroit area. I am originally from Traverse City though.

Traverse City is very nice. We'd live there if we could BOTH find jobs there. Although we'd much rather live in the Yoop, as we both went to MTU and loved it there a lot. Again, the jobs thing is what ultimately landed us in this area.

I will try to get pics of Bailey tonight, as I know everyone wants to see.

Ok, So just ignore me, I was not ready for this photo  

But here is Bailey, Trying to be in my lap as much as she can. 

 How sweet!!

Yes they think they are big lap dogs.  She is a cutie.

Funny my husband started out that dogs had to stay outside, then they could come in, but not on the furniture, then okay sometimes on the furniture but not in the bed, then that went away too.  They just know how to snuggle their way in I am afraid.

Of course we have 4 dogs.  Only one gets to sleep on the bed, two on their beds and one in a crate.  My older GSP never stops and the only real way not to be woken up at 4:00 am every morning, is to have her crated.  Because her little alarm goes off at 4:00 am every morning and she is like the snooze button, she will keep checking with you every 10 minutes if it is time to get up.  I got tired of saying go lay down until it was really time to get up.

Roz