Blue Sage German Shepherds

01/13/2026

Sitting in the dental office and see a gorgeous German Shepherd. Him and the girls seemed familiar, opened the magazine and saw the name: Duke and the family who got him from us a long time ago. Well, gorgeous Duke made a magazine cover!

06/25/2025

Diesel put his first title on the dog last weekend at OG Idaho Shutzhund club’s trial - he and Cheytac earned BH. Cheytac went into heat a week before trial, so Diesel was getting anxiety attacks that they are going to fail after all the training they did. Well, Cheytac is bestest girl and Diesel got support from our OG Idaho friends Thomas and Sally, so they did it! Cheytac must have understood the achievement - check out her creepy smile! 🤣🤣🤣

06/24/2025

SO JUST HOW LONG DO YOUR PET’S SHOTS LAST?

Definitely longer than a year!

According to the top pet immunologist (aka vaccine expert) in the world, Dr. Ronald Schultz, Ph.D. – “ Annual revaccination provides no benefit and may increase the risk for adverse reactions.”

What the heck are adverse reactions (or side effects)?

Well according to the other rock star pet immunologist Dr. Jean Dodds:

“Side effects from dog vaccinations can occur anywhere from instantly up to several weeks or months later. Vaccines can even cause susceptibility to chronic diseases that appear much later in a dog’s life (Dodd, 2001).

Severe and fatal adverse reactions include:

•Susceptibility to infections.

•Neurological disorders and encephalitis.

•Aberrant behavior, including unprovoked aggression.

•Vaccines are linked to seizures. Distemper, parvovirus, rabies and, presumably, other vaccines have been linked with poly neuropathy, a nerve disease that involves inflammation of several nerves. (Dodds,2001)”

SO HOW LONG EXACTLY DOES YOUR PET’S VACCINE LAST?

According to the recommendations of the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA), (basically the dudes who set the standards for the vets): “Among healthy dogs, all commercially available [core] vaccines are expected to induce a sustained protective immune response lasting at least 5 yr. thereafter”

Here’s the breakdown of the core vaccines from Dr. Ronald Schultz:

Minimum Duration of Immunity for Canine Vaccines:

Distemper- 7 years by challenge
Parvovirus – 7 years by challenge
Adenovirus – 7 years by challenge
Canine rabies – 3 years by challenge

The moral of the story here, if you have no idea when your pet is due or has been vaccinated, then just run a titer test and this will confirm if you are due, rather than over-vaccinate your poor pet, setting the stage for future problems!

What’s a titer test?

A titer test (pronounced tight-errr) is a laboratory or in-house veterinary test measuring the existence and level of antibodies (necessary to fight off disease) in your pet’s blood. Basically, it’s a test that will tell you whether or not you actually need to vaccinate your pet.

It’s also super useful when making a decision about vaccinating a pet with an unknown vaccination history, or for determining if pets have received immunity from vaccination.

Vaccinating your pet is super important so don’t lose the overall message here: VACCINATE, JUST DON’T OVER-VACCINATE!

According to Dr. Dodds:

“Vaccines have achieved many important benefits for companion animals, and has saved more animals' lives than any other medical advance.”

Want more on titer testing? Check it out:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153271303942028&set=pb.509362027.-2207520000.1461100680.&type=3&theater

Rodney Habib

"An educated, informed and well-researched community of pet owners can only put more pressure on the pet food industry to be better! When pet owners know better, they will only do better!"

01/05/2025

What you see first thing in the morning if you got a German Shepherd!

Painting of our puppy Bear by Sydney Hoxsey. Thank you Pam Knoell Hoxsey for sharing work of your talented daughter!

12/24/2024

Visiting Home Depot with 5-months-old Sansa this morning. She thought everything there was pretty awesome!

05/29/2024

We rotate our dogs’ food

If there is one thing that German shepherd owners can agree on, it’s that they will disagree about what the best diets for their dogs are.There is always plenty of debate over dog food. Most are brought on by personal biases, marketing by the pet food industry, social media, the spread of misinfor...

11/18/2023

Just got this from our dog training club. Please, read and check on your pets! Try to keep your dogs more contained to avoid being infected until it’s known better what’s going on and they are checked.

Experts believe the unidentified condition, which leads to severe antibiotic-resistant pneumonia, is contagious and contracted by dogs in group settings.

10/02/2023

Sig got his BarnHunt Open level title (RATO) this weekend. Great job Treasure Valley Barn Hunt on seamless organization and fun trial!

06/11/2023

Sig passed all three phases (Tracking, Obedience and Protection) and got his IGP 1 this weekend! Big thanks to our friends from OG Idaho for training and supporting us along this journey!

06/11/2023

Pretty proud of the team Diesel and Obsidian who passed Character test during OG Idaho trial this weekend. They got to walk by other dog, handle noises, look for a toy, do separation and bunch of other things. Diesel was all worried if he can handle her, but he did a great job as a Junior handler. He was all beaming with happiness that he got to do real trial test in front of the real judge! Big thanks to all our friends from OG Idaho for working with both of them and supporting them along the journey!