Beautiful dogs.
I’ve never (well, beyond childhood, which doesn’t count and they never worked out) “adopted” an older dog. So I’m not sure how all that would work out. Only pups.
I never understood, since I took over the reins of dogs as a teen (my parents weren’t really “animal” people and they nor my siblings didn’t really get it at all), why so many “nice-nice” people with pets can hardly do anything with their dogs. I took dogs very seriously when I was in high school; after studying a lot for a while we got a “show” GS (LOL). I conditioned and trained her, and between her nature (plain as a puppy) and her up-bringing, she is the most wonderful dog I ever even heard of. No trouble at all. I never understand why people crate up their dogs “when we’re out”, or even at night, or can’t go for walks (well, my current anxious dog IS difficult when she gets anxious about dogs, people, etc), or go for rides. I conditioned my dogs for this. My dogs have the run of the house at all times; I don’t worry about them ruining anything. They’re no trouble. I expect they will be “free”. They need the discipline to understand how to handle freedom.
My next-door neighbors got a Golden last year (sigh). They’re working on an “invisible” fence now, since they have a smallish yard which back butts right up against our front/side. When talking to them the wife mentions how wonderfully calm (LOL, again the anxiety she doesn’t always see) our dog is - no running, no escaping, no barking (per se). This when her still-young dog ran pell-mell to our dog and toddler from their backyard when we opened our garage. She was “grateful” our elder GS wasn’t perturbed by this, etc.
Very nice. GSD’s are very tolerant dogs and can sense when another dog is being aggressive or just wants to say hi. That’s one of the reasons I love the breed so much. When we lose the next dog, I’ll be adding a King Shepherd to the pack.
the biggest misunderstanding about dogs is that you can’t train their loyalty, you have to earn it. Dogs aren’t stupid, they are very intelligent, it’s us that can’t understand what they want to tell us. Dogs are much better at cross species communication than we are.