Temperament:  (German Shepherd Personality) People unfamiliar with the 'true temperament' of the German Shepherd like we breed here at Heidelberg Shepherds, think the Shepherd as a Breed is Vicious, Hates and Attacks Children and is dangerous to their Owners -  -However, when a German Shepherd is bred for the Temperament of Heidelberg Shepherds they are totally different from the above description of the 'Temperament" as perceived by many people who have never seen a correctly bred German Shepherd.  The following true happenings are examples which clearly explain the outstanding temperament we breed. 

David Cornell, who owns Heidelberg's Erik, (Pictured below), expressed concern that since Erik had never been around small children and their young nephew was coming with his parents for a visit that Erik would not accept a small child.  The picture above (top left) is how Erik received the nephew immediately.   The picture above (left) is Erik winning points toward his Championship.   Heidelberg's Erik weighs 108 lbs. as of Feb. 1998.

                                                 
Above :  Heidelberg's Erick - OFA-GS-43678 G-11 Ch. Points                H's Erik's First visit with David Cornell's young nephew.  
 

All our Heidelberg Shepherds are:

The sweetest, loving and licky dog in existence. They are extremely protective of little children and other animals and pets with whom they live. For example, if we put a five (5) day old baby, a two (2) year old tot and a six (6) year old first grader in a pen with any pair of Shepherds here at Heidelberg. None of the above children would be in danger--quite the contrary. One of the Shepherds would inform the other Shepherd that the three (3) above children belong to him/her (the alpha Shepherd) and to stay away from them. In some instances, the Shepherds would share and care for the children equally. Although they are exceptionally sweet, they would fight like a monster giving their life before an intruder, either animal or man, could in any way harm these children. These traits are instinctive when the Shepherd is Bred as we do here at Heidelberg Shepherds.

lili Aviles with her Mex. Champion from our Mex. Ch. Heidelberg's Judd.

When a new family member (baby) is born into this world where a mature Shepherd lives, if the Shepherd is allowed to be in the house when the family is home, Heidelberg Shepherds will immediately assume a position near the crib where they can care for the newborn. In most instances, when the newborn needs to have the diaper changed, without training, the dog will go to the kitchen or other part of the house to whine or bark and tell the maternal parents or baby sitter that his/her baby (the Shepherd thinks this baby belongs to him/her, the Shepherd) needs to be changed. When the baby begins to walk and gets near the edge of the swimming pool, the Shepherd will block the babys progress by standing in the baby's way. If the baby fell into the pool, the Shepherd would immediately jump in and pull the baby out without hurting the baby. These traits are instinctive when the Shepherd is Bred as we do here at Heidelberg Shepherds.

Mr. Alan Cole and Family own Heidelberg's Nitro v Ilsa, (Call name 'Nitro' pictured here with Mr. Cole). Nitro is a large handsome Male and is typical of the temperament we raise here at Heidelberg. Alan Cole lives in the Woodlands, Texas near Houston. Nitro is very sweet German Shepherd, great with children, loves everyone, and Alan had often called him 'just a big Powder Puff'. As a matter of fact, Alan had questioned whether of not Nitro would ever be protective. Alan works in various sites in the Southern US. On one occasion, he was sent to work in Central Mississippi and liked to drive late at night as there is less traffic and he needed to report to work at 7 am the next morning. He took Nitro along for company. At around 4:00 am that morning he pulled into a rest stop in Mississippi. There were no cars or evidence of people about so he let Nitro out to exercise among the trees and he went into the Restroom. As he came out of the building he saw 4 men, 2 on each side of his truck trying to open his truck doors. Alan looked around to see where they had come from and saw that their car was parked some distance from the Restrooms. One of the men had a 3-4 foot pipe and the others had shorter clubs. Alan said 'Hey, what are you guys doing there?' They turned toward him and all four of them began to come toward him. The guy with the long pipe said 'Say, man, what have you got?' Alan knew he was in trouble. When the 4 men were about 10 feet from him they began to spread out and all of a sudden Nitro ran up and sat beside Mr. Cole and barred his teeth and made a low growl. Three of the men's eyes bulged and they turned and ran back to their vehicle. The man with the pipe stood his ground. He said, 'I ain't afraid of no Dog". With that he raised the pipe and stepped forward. Nitro in one bound leaped through the air and hit the man with all his weight in the chest and knocked him backwards to the ground and stood over him growling, his teeth bared at the man's throat. Alan told the man to remain quiet and the dog wouldn't hurt him but the man raised the bar to bash Nitro and Nitro bit his arm between the elbow and the shoulder and tore a hunk of flesh off his arm. Blood went everywhere.

Meanwhile the three fleeing would-be-robbers had retrieved their car and came back for the man on the ground, yelling for him to run and get in. Nitro was sitting on alert beside the man bleeding on the ground who quickly rolled over and got up and ran to the get-away-car with Nitro in pursuit. Just before he reached the car he turned and tried to hit Nitro again with his undamaged hand. Nitro got him in the rear on the upper leg this time and bit a large piece of flesh out of his leg near his buttock. His friends pulled him through the opened window of their car with Nitro handing onto his leg. After they drove off Nitro dropped a hunk of flesh (at least a pound from the guys leg at Alan's feet. Of course, this whole exchange happened in a matter of seconds. Almost too quickly to think of proper responses.

When Alan recounted this story at his work site that morning his co-workers who lived in the area said he was very lucky indeed to have had Nitro with him as they had heard of many travelers being beaten up, robbed, and their cars stolen at picnic areas and rest stops in the late night hours. Usually they also put the phones out of service so the person couldn't alert help until they were safely away. It was happening all around the state.

Nearly two years later Alan and Nitro were traveling the same route and stopped at the same rest stop, this time around 1:00 am. This time there was a Security Guard on duty. Alan went up to him and said "I see you have security here now." The Guard said "Yeah, we had to. About two years back a group of guys were attacked by a wild dog or wolf at this rest stop and the State feels that there is need to protect the travelers from animal attacks." Alan told him "That was no wild dog or wolf, it was my dog Nitro and he saved my life, those guys were going to do me in. Would you like to meet Nitro, he is in my truck right over there." "Hell No", the Guard said, "Why he must be a really mean and vicious dog to have torn up that guy like that". Mr. Cole said "why no, he is just a big powder puff to those people he likes".

Ninja Burglar story.  Real stories of Abner, (Heidelberg's v Tara) by Rob Jeanes, Owner.
When Abner was barely two years old, in my neighborhood, we had a 6 month run of some very unique thieves.  They referred to themselves as the 'Ninja Burglars' and all of them seemed to be well trained and very athletic.  Their mode of operation was to hit homes at night while occupants were sleeping, targeting such items as purses, wallets, guns, valuables, valuable automobiles by virtue of key possession, etc. and had proved to be quite proficient at it without waking a soul.  Whenever one was discovered inside someone's home, they intimidated or frightened the individuals and ran off into the depths of our deep, heavily wooded subdivision lots with alleys in back, usually hitting another house or two within a very small radius to escape unscathed.  They were fearless, not your typical burglar type.  The police told us that they would not go into our alleys and back yards in search of them for fear of mistaken identity and retaliation from some very concerned and frightened residents.  Many of my neighbors on my block had no dog to protect their grounds so we shared Abner.  He always sleeps in our house at night but by virtue of a pet door, my back yard is accessible to him as needed.  As I have only a 4 foot cyclone fence, he can step right over it.  At this time there were 5 older widows living on my block who I had known for 15 yrs. or so including their late husbands....good people.  I found out much later that anytime Abner jumped the fence and prowled the area,  they always had a snack for him such as pot roast, chicken or some special snack when he came to visit.  As a result, he had a regular route to run when he snuck out of our house to visit his friends on our block.  He's always been good about looking out for cars and none of the neighbors minded or complained about his presence patrolling the yards.  Even the resident canines didn't have much to say to him.  I don't allow my dog to run loose, but I was outnumbered by him and the neighbors in this unique situation.

One morning, the little lady across the street came and told me that she was awakened in the middle of the night by Abner barking profusely and chasing something through her backyard.  Two days later, I was asleep in the TV room in the back of the house about 2:00 AM, Abner was in the back yard snoozing also, I guess.  I was suddenly awakened by the cound of Abner on full attack chasing something and heard a major tussle in the back behind my storage shed.  I ran through the door and outside to Abner to see what was up.  By then he was trotting up to the house proudly chewing on a bloody back pocket and sizeable chunk of the rear of a pair of jeans. Good Boy!!!

Although we heard of lots of burglar hits all around the neighborhood during this period, my block seemed to get through un-thieved....go figure!  Eventually these guys were caught only because of a very large reward offered and the head, trainer and chief of this organization was turned in by his cohorts.

Rob Janes with Abner in his fishing boat.

Abner' Fishing Story, by Rob Jeanes

Abner is quite adept at boat riding and bass fishing, see above photo.  I often fish by myself, stay overnight in my tent, and fish again the next day.  Sometimes, my only partner is Abner, and he's great.  He never complains about wind direction, solar content, wrong color of lure, no more beer or anything.  At nighttime, he sleeps right at the door of my tent.  I've never had any complications on these outings except with an occasional skunk or other woodland critter's appearance.

There is one fishing trip that stands out though.  I was as the San Jacinto River in a desolate spot with one of my fishing buddies and Abner.  It was right at dusk or past.  We pulled over to shore as the dog had requested a personal relief walk on the beach.  Abner jumped out and wandered off in the trees to our left.  Suddenly, 30 yards to my right, out of the trees came 4 black males headed in our direction talking some very ugly language and acting quite suspiciously.  We turned and began to walk to the boat ignoring them, as our guns were in our boat.  As we felt their pace hasten in our direction, we were more than a little concerned about a serious confrontation.  At that moment, Abner came hurdling out of the woods to our left, hair standing on his neck, growling, teeth barred and launched right at the group of four.  It was almost funny, two of them screamed, and all four turned and ran away as fast as they could with Abner in away pursuit.  We jumped in the boat and called him back.  He immediately wheeled around, bolted straight back and jumped in the boat.  I slammed it in reverse and we were gone.  Good Boy Abner!!!

Abner's Truck Story

For a living, I have my own hydraulic repair shop that I travel to every day and a good dog's presence there is no problem throughout the workday.  Abner rides shotgun with me almost everywhere I go alone.  I used to have a full dressed Silverado Suburban that Abner was quite fond of.  He either rode in the back with the seats down or in the captain's chair next to me, his choice.  When I dash in somewhere for a short moment only, I normally leave the engine running, A/C going, dog inside the truck and the window half down.  This was the situation one day as I pulled into a convenience store.  Driving in to a head-in parking space near the pay phones outside, I noticed two 'characters' standing at the phones and at first paid them no mind.  Abner was laying in the back of the truck and through the tinted windows in back, he was invisible.  I was in quite a hurry, rolled down the window, threw it in park, opened the door and proceeded to go inside not even fully closing the drivers door.  I noticed out of the corner of my eye though, as I passed the hood of my truck, one character looking at my running truck and lightly slap the other guy.  I knew what he had in mind and thought to myself, shame on him.  I went inside the door and mentioned for the attendant to come over and watch as I was peeking at my truck from behind a coke machine.  Sure enough, character one bounced over to my truck, reached in and opened the door intent upon taking the vehicle.  About this time Abner spoke up loudly and character one and Abner came flying out of the dirvers side together.  The owner of the store and myself both rolling on the floor laughing.  Character one and two then shrieked and proceeded to run as fast as they could with Abner in hot pursuit.  I let him run them for about a block and called him back.  He came trotting back very proud of himself and hopped back in the captain's chair.  Good Boy Abner !!!