Kleinen Wiese German Shepherds

Posted By Sandy Wilson on May 31, 2009

Nicky working the large flock on Nicklesberg’s farm.  Alf v. Fafnerhaus – a full time working dog!

I have wonderful dogs thanks to Manfred Heyne sharing with us his deep love and respect for the old line GSD herding dogs worked by earlier Shaefermeisters.  It was out of these great dogs that Manfred later developed his own line of herding champions.  In 1992, Ellen Nickelsberg bred her Margaret v. Fafnerhaus to Manfred’s last herding champion, Nick vd. Stammherde Ramholz, HGH.  This union produced Ellen’s Alf v. Fafnerhaus (known as Nicky) who worked his whole life with her tending their flock of 200-400 sheep.  http://www.german-shepherdherding.com/manfred-english/index.html

Hera v. Fafnerhaus - Nicky Daughter and our Foundation Bitch

I have also had the good fortune of breeding a Nicky daughter and carrying on these wonderful genetics.  Thus far from her, I have two Nicky grandchildren that are showing great herding talent.  These dogs carry on their heritage of intelligence and working ability from Manfred’s line.  They love to work and they love to please and they do so with zest.  I owe much thanks to Manfred, Ellen and Nicky for allowing me the opportunity to have these dogs as my companions and partners.

Below are some pictures of Nicky working several hundred sheep.  He took his job seriously and did it well.  He was what I call a “Real Working Dog”.  He had a job and he did it with pride, respect and authority.  Stay tuned for more pictures of some of Nicky’s working offspring and for what the next generation is now doing.

"Nicky" Alf v. Fafnerhaus

Nicky - Makes his own boundary.

Nicky needed no commands to work – he was just a natural!  I am hoping we can keep these precious genetics alive.

More to come on the offspring from “Nicky” Alf v. Fafnerhaus . . . .

Category: Herding | No Comments »
Tags: Aiko vd. Kleinen Wiese, Alf v. Fafnerhaus, Arla vd Kleinen Wiese, German Shepherd, Sheep Herding

Posted By Sandy Wilson on May 26, 2009

Just wanted to touch a bit on pups that we have produced in the past.  We started our breeding program with our foundation bitch, Hera v. Fafnerhaus.  Hera is out of Alf v. Fafnerhaus “Nicky” who comes from Ellen Nickelsberg and Manfred Heyne’s line of  GSD  herding champions that go back to the great old herding dogs of the breed.  Hera showed all the natural talent her father had and we have seen now that Hera is very strong in passing her father’s  same genetic herding ability to her puppies. 

Hera v. Fafnerhaus (Ussa v. Kuchenthal X Alf v. Fafnerhaus)

Hera v. Fafnerhaus was bred several times and she is consistently passing on the same strong genetics of her father.  She is a dog that wants to please and do anything you ask of her.  She has wonderful qualities for a fine working partner.  We are so happy to be able to keep these genetics alive and hopefully pass them on and produce good strong working dogs in the future.

Alf v. Fafnerhaus "Nicky"

Above, Nicky working a flock of several hundred sheep.  For him it was a real job that he did every day of his life, for many hours a day.  To me, Nicky is a superb example of a what a real life working dog is all about.  A dog doing a job and taking it seriously, but with little direction and absolutely no motivation but for the work itself.    He was a dream to watch working the sheep.  I feel so priviledged to have known Nicky in person and to have had the opportunity to watch this dog work.  What a treat!

Our first litter was with Hera and Diesel v. Schulmeister.  Diesel brought alot into the breeding also.  He is very intelligent, has great work ethic, balanced drives, excellent working structure, and came from a strong line of schutzhund dogs.  Diesel also had  excellent old herding lines in his pedigree that we felt would “nick” together well with our genetics.  These two dogs combined proved to produce very nice pups that all had an attraction to sheep and showed a strong  desire to please and work.    Out of the first litter “A”, we kept Arla and Aiko. 

Diesel v. Schulmeister, SchHI, AD

Diesel is a large, powerful male.  His strong working qualities, along with his biddability and intelligence, made him a good match for our Hera.  Diesel’s pedigree has many strong working dogs in his background as well as some good herding lines.  His dam was Reba v. Marinik, HGH, CD, TD and his sire was Siggo v. Haus Antverpa, SchHIII, IP3, KKL1.

Hera and Diesel’s progeny, Arla and Aiko both have a strong desire to work and have proven to have natural ability herding sheep.  They both are working dogs at our farm at present.  Both show great promise as excellent herding dogs.   These two pups are very “up” dogs and jump at the chance to retrieve or do a little tracking too.

Here are just a few pictures of the pups from the “A” Litter.

Hera v. Fafnerhaus X Diesel v. Schulmeister "A" Litter

"A" Litter - These pups were an active bunch full of confidence and curiosity.

Our 2nd Litter was purely for companion dogs, as we had alot of requests for pups after so many people seeing our first litter of pups.  They were all proving to have wonderful temperaments, being very intelligent, and having such amazing biddability. 

Here are just a few pics of pups from the second litter.

Male Sable Puppy - "B" Litter

Female Black/Tan Puppy - "B" Litter

 Above I think was one of my most favorite puppies named Blanka.   She was a beautiful female puppy that was just a ball of energy.  So sweet and full of life.  I think the hardest thing about raising these beautiful dogs is having them go to new homes after  my boys have bonded with them and have spent so much time holding and loving them.

My two boys are in the whelping box from the minute these puppies are born and they are handled frequently during the day/night.  It’s truly hard to keep my kids out of the box, but the dogs don’t mind at all.  They seem to just accept family into their nesting ground and accept all the help the boys give. 

It actually broke my heart when this litter was gone because my older son wanted to keep a dog so badly.  He named our biggest sable male Baron and he was such a nice pup, but we couldnt’ keep one more – it wouldn’t be fair to the dogs we already had.  But soon, I told my son, he would have another Baron!  Perhaps a Baroness!

Category: Puppies | No Comments »
Tags: A Litter Puppies, B Litter - Puppies, German Shepherd

Posted By Sandy Wilson on May 26, 2009

Hera again was bred to Diesel because these two dogs seemed to just make a great “couple” so to speak.  Their genetics just went together nicely and produced what we like to see!  This time we got more requests for dogs that were for working.  This definitely felt good to us as we knew we were headed in the right direction in our breeding program.  We knew our dogs had the potential to work in many areas, as we were able to evaluate and see pups over several years.  We produced dogs with lots of drive, intelligence, biddability, wonderful temperaments and a true desire to work and please.

"C" Litter Puppies

This just happens to be a favorite puppy photo of mine and happened to be one of my pick females of the litter. 

Caden was one of our male puppies.  We used to call him the “King”.  He was always top dog in the litter, but the thing I loved about him was that he was a very fair dog and clear in his actions with the other pups.  He was never a bully but he commanded respect from his other litter mates.  It was very interesting as this puppy developed.  He was a handful, but a really nice balanced pup.

Caden is presently living in Red Deer, Alberta Canada.  He has been tracking since he was 9 weeks old and apparently doing very well – a real nose down dog.  He also just recently started training in Schutzhund at the Calgary Schutzhund Club and apparently is loving the work.    We are really proud of this boy as he is quite the talk where ever he goes.  He is only 17 weeks old in this picture, but we’ll have more of this boy and how he is progressing in his training.  I think he is going to be a super competitor on the schutzhund field in the future.  He will also be working sheep in the near future.  As he was tested as a pup and was very attracted to sheep.  Good luck Donna! 

Caden tracking at the Cranbrook tracking seminar as a demo dog!

Caden as a young dog.

Caden - "King of the Beasts"

This picture makes me laugh everytime I look at it.  He was so much fun to photograph – had lots of character and personality to say the least.

More on the “C” litter puppies later.  This is a litter I am watching closely as they are involved in agility, tracking, obedience, schutzhund and soon herding.  

Soon Hera’s daughter Arla, out of the “A” litter, will be having puppies and so we hope that she will pass on more of Hera’s wonderful genetics along with the sire, Hawk v. Eichenluft, SchHIII, KKL2.  Both are dogs with alot of drive and desire to work.  I can’t wait.  Finally, I am going to let my son keep a puppy out of this litter!

Category: Herding, Puppies, Schutzhund, Tracking | No Comments »
Tags: C Litter - puppies, Caden, Callie, German Shepherd, Schutzhund

Posted By Sandy Wilson on May 21, 2009

Amber is another one of our “A” litter puppies who is out there working, but not with sheep.  Instead she is an agility “Queen”.  She is a very intense dog with great focus on commands and accuracy on her equipment.  She loves to work and doesn’t need any type of motivation to get her into action.   These dogs are just happy to work, any kind of work or maybe I should say play!

Amber is very athletic and very quick.  I have never seen a dog do weave poles like she does.  Her body is so flexible, she is like a snake slinking between the poles.  She has many titles in agility, but I am not up to date on all of them.  When I get all her titles, I will post them, as I would not want to leave any of them out.

Amber practicing weave poles.

Amber lives in PA as a family companion and a competition dog.  Amber lives with  4 young children who she adores and loves to play with, but she also takes her agility very seriously.

Amber practicing a jump.

Good luck Amber in your agility trials.  We look forward to hearing more about you in the future.

Category: Agility | No Comments »
Tags: A-Litter, Agility, Amber, German Shepherd

Posted By Bill Wilson on May 19, 2009

Aiko helping with the barn work

Last fall (2008,) Sandy and I had a talk about Aiko’s herding training.  Sandy felt that she couldn’t give Aiko enough time with every thing else she had going on, so I agreed to take on his training.  There were several obstacles that I needed to overcome if we were going to make meaningful progress.  1. Aiko is Sandy’s dog and she has a stronger relationship with him.  2. Aiko is a three year old intact male and a little full of himself.  3. Aiko had developed some bad habits from his intermittent training.  On the plus side,  Aiko is very good natured and although he can be a little rough when excited, he doesn’t have the intent to hurt the sheep.  Aiko is very intelligent, very eager to please, loves to work, and has a strong attraction to sheep.

At the time, Aiko was doing OK with his boundary work in the field and barn work.  He under stood the task and showed excellent natural talent but without the working relationship with me, he would frequently give in to the temptation to break in and grab a sheep just to have some fun.  The grip (Aiko is a thigh man) was just too self rewarding for Aiko and his little indulgences were preventing from focusing on his work.  I wanted to take away the grip without putting me in an adversarial position with Aiko.  I decided that over the winter we would do barn work with a muzzle and long line, just to keep him honest.

I like barn work for teaching basics.  It’s a close environment that isn’t overly stimulating so that the dogs learn to relax around the sheep.  I also think that the dogs respond better to doing light work rather than just mindless obedience exercises.  While wearing the muzzle, Aiko had to learn to use his body to control the sheep rather that going for a grip.

It took almost two and a half months, but one day things clicked for Aiko and his attitude changed.  He became more relaxed and more interested in the whole flock rather then singling out individuals.  The lambs were born about this time and Aiko is very gentle with them.  After about two more weeks, I removed the long line and Aiko just kept improving.  The muzzle came off shortly after that.  My relationship with Aiko has steadily improved through the whole process and we have become a super herding team.

Next we head out to the wide graze . . .

Category: Herding | No Comments »
Tags: A-Litter, Aiko, German Shepherd, Sheep Herding