Its coloration was black and silver and he was BIG. I have never seen another like him until a couple years ago when in my local paper they featured a local dog trainer and his shep.
The dog could have been my dad's dog's litter mate. Anyway, I sent the trainer an email requesting info on the dog but the jerk never responded. Then last year about this time I was at a vegetable stand north of me when a gal showed up with a young shep the same coloration but smaller that was being trained to become a seeing eye dog.
After dad had put Zarek down I guess he threw away the papers that came with him because I have never been able to find them. I would love to have a shep myself but their hereditary hip dysplacia is too much to cope with after so few years with them.
Shepherds, like most other larger breeds may succumb to hip dysplasia; however, the reputation Sheps have for this condition is largely the result of indiscriminate breeding. In the Post-WWII era, Sheps spiked in popularity in the US and a lot of breeders irresponsibly cranked out puppies just to make sales and a lot of genetically weak dogs were bred. A select few aficionados put principle ahead of profit, but a lot of Shepherd lines still remain prone to dysplasia as well as allergies and various skin conditions. The breed was reinvigorated after the fall of the Soviet empire when fresh blood lines became available in the west. My dog's sire was a Czech import, and checked in at a whopping 125 lbs (massive for a GSD). My boy checks in between 105-110 depending on time of year, how recently he ate, and how recently he got rid of what he ate....