Sunday, May 17, 2009

A German Shepherd shows love and loyalty to his Labrador companion




This is a story I saw on the BBC and it warmed my heart

At 6.30am on a busy New York expressway, a Labrador is hit by a car and lies on the tarmac while her companion, a German Shepherd, leaps into the traffic to protect her.

Police officers who tried to rescue the injured dog had to do so while the other dog was in full protection mode which made their job harder. They managed to lift the injured Labrador with a sheet into the police vehicle to take her to the animal hospital. Then they had trouble catching the other dog who wanted to follow the police car.

All ended happily with the police “ arresting” the German Shepherd without injury to either the police or the dog and the two dogs were re-united. The injured dog has a broken leg and bruising and is expected to make a full recovery.

When you think of the speed on a motorway or expressway it is hard to imagine how all this could happen with so little injury to either dog or the people helping. Perhaps that was due to the courage of the German Shepherd. His determination to protect his friend brought the right vibes for a successful outcome.




This picture was taken at the RSPCA’s Million Paw Walk. See my next post.


German Shepherds are great dogs. They were originally bred to protect and herd sheep so protection is not new to them. Their intelligence makes them great pets. They respond well to training and are often used as guide dogs and police dogs.

They can show great self discipline when trained as this popular picture shows. I have always wondered at the confidence of the cat in this picture.

A fully grown German Shepherd is physically very strong and needs lots of exercise

2 comments:

dcmax said...

The German Shepherd is a Lab mix and he is actually the son of the dog that was hit in traffic. He was protecting his mother. What a great dog! There's a video clip on cnn.com

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/05/15/ac.shot.thursday.cnn

Em said...

Dear dcmax
Thank you for the further info and the direction to the video - how brave he was. I like it even better that it was his mother who was hurt. An amazing dog.
Cheers Em