New Face In Our Family
 

Sorry I haven't been as attentive as normal this last week,:o but a new face has arrived in the family.

A new grandchild you ask? :confused:

NO! (have enough of those :hair: ) This is better. :D

You may have noticed I'm a bit of a pup person and I guess I've passed that on to my offspring. :) After a lot of consideration beyond the normal "should we get a pet?" questions, my son has added a canine to his household. :rolleyes: The really different part is he is going to be expected to earn his keep. :nod:

Most of you also know my son is a cop in our fair burg. After a nagging personal want and the apparent occupational hole in the local services, he set about researching and formally purposing that a K-9 addition would be a self-supporting service the department needed.

He was told "that's a good idea, but there is NO budget to establish it. If you can raise the $35k, we'll do it" :faint:

We have a pup. :D

(only those interested in the uniqueness of a police dog need read on)

Gorgeous specimen. Hopefully he'll be a loyal friend and partner for many years to come for whole family.

"Onco" is an 8 month old male imported from Germany, one month ago, to the
Von der haus Gill German Shepherds Inc. kennels.

Last Thursday, No.1 son left for a small town near the Indiana border to first be interviewed/inspected all day Friday, then after passing, work with and select from 7 possible dogs, his to-be partner. Sunday night Onco came home.

He came from Germany with the name "Onco" (which no one seems to be able to find a translation or meaning of :confused: ) and while he could be renamed, it would only be confusion to relearn a new name. At this point we are only interested in 'learning' and not 'UNlearning', so he IS Onco. :)

Onco is acclimating to living in a house for the first time and has learned how steps work in the last two days. He has met his first little people and we are happy to say he does not think they are food. :D (He's working on that lesion with the 2 cats :banghead: They aren't too pleased with him either. :rolleyes2 )

Cats= the other white meat.
Cats were put on this earth for two reasons, targets and chili. lol

Onco sleeps in his crate/cage in the dinning room for now and is being introduced to one or two new people at a time. The next week and a half will be spent 'bonding' with partner and learning to be part of a people pack. Then he and No1 return to Von der haus Gill for 6 weeks where they'll be cross trained together in three disciplines. They'll come home on the wekends and YES, ......... I will be there to see what they have learned. :D (especially the son :hair: )



I'll keep you posted as early developments happen. :)

He looks beautiful! We have a German Sheppard mix (we rescued him at 8 months old) and still working hard to move more towards the learning aspect and away from the unlearning part! We have a pitbull/collie mix who actually just shakes her head and rolls her eyes at our fiesty pup (the pitbull is about 12).

Amazing pics and great additions to any family!

I agree, any animal is a wonderful addition to any family so long as it's the right animal for them. I wish you and your son's portion of the family good luck and congratulations.

Yes I can see the family resemblance? :thumbs:






:roflmao:

I hope all works out for your son, I know 3 officers who have K-9 partners and they all love their job. One officer actually has 2 dogs, the older one is now retired and is a family pet.

It's good to hear that one of the dogs got to the point of retirement and that the cops are doing well and still love their job.

PF, beautiful dog! Good luck to son and family.

Great looking dog, PF! :thumbs:

We have some excellent k-9 units here. Glad he was able to see his idea to fruition.

Awwww

I'll be sending a pillow slip i've slept on for him to learn my scent *L*...i want a poochie cuddle when i eventually get there..without teeth!

Very cool PF!!!!!


At the old job I used to let this gal bring in the service pups she was training. Its hard to train in public when the public wants to pet the puppy.

aww. cute. good luck with him!

just remember my two fave commands "Geib lout" and "Ous/Fus" A large confident dog that is barking and looks ready to go has as much stopping power on the leash as off. And a dog that releases on command when the suspect has surrendered can prevent lawsuits.


Was watching a different style of training, they escorted the suspect with the dog walking between the suspects' legs, god i love watching good working dogs.


glad your #1 finally got a partner that won't hold you against him :console:
:coffee: here, luv ya!

PantyFanatic,

Fine looking dog there. I'm the only dog lover in my family - so we have cats. :(

I guess that's why Von der haus gets $1,000/wk for their facility and expertise. $6k for the pup, then another $6k for training what is suppose to already be an superior animal gave me sticker shock. After a little reflection, I can see they are reasonable for what it is. At $1k/wk, it breaks down to $200 per day for room and board and a full day of intense, highly specialized quantifiable training of a person and an animal. You couldn't take a philosophy course where it is just talk and thoughts for a person, that better have a lunch and a place to stay. :shrug:

He is sooooo cute!!


Just like his owner. ;)

Ooooh, he's a good doggie. Is that you in the pix, PF? Handsome devil!

hahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahaahahahahhaahahhahaha hahhahahahah!^^^^

It sure is! :D






............................................ one generation removed. :(

Take solace in the fact you made good looking kids. Although I'm sure their mother had something to do with it :p

*Lil runs to edit ^^^ "......... had a LOT to do with it." *

I know you had plenty to do with it, don't be shy.

c'mon PF if I was another gargoyle I'd fuck you



giggle, joke love you know i think you're sexy

*snorts*

OMG i missed that dig...frelling funny too lmfao

My brother was stationed in Germany for several years and married a German girl so I emailed him and asked if he knew what Onco meant.


His reply.....

"dunno what Onco could mean. It could have been an abbreviation of something else possibly. Which would be near impossible to find.
My German shepard, when i was working K-9 in Germany, was named Nikko. Nikko is a famous place in Japan where a Emperor's monument is.
Most likely it only means something to whoever named him."

************************************************** 8
I did a quick google search ..... got alot of Onco's.......
Onco Sportfishing, Onco Stock Quote, Onco-Mouse and Onco Chat to name a few and tons of medical sites......

Two stand out as good possiblities for where he got his name though......

1 - Onco, Brazil
Google 'map' search for Onco turned that up.

And then this site....
2 - http://www.reuters.com/article/pres...2008+MW20080204

Onco Petroleum Inc. Listed on Frankfurt Stock Exchange
Mon Feb 4, 2008 2:58pm EST

TORONTO, ONTARIO, Feb 04 (MARKET WIRE) --
Onco Petroleum Inc. (CNQ: ONCO)(FRANKFURT: 3HX)("Onco" or the "Company")
is pleased to announce that, in addition to being listed on the Canadian
Trading and Quotation System Inc. ("CNQ") in Toronto, it became listed on
the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FWB(R) Frankfurter Wertpapierborse) on
January 28, 2008, trading under the symbol 3HX.

The Frankfurt Stock Exchange, owned and operated by Deutsche Borse, is
recognized as one of the largest and most efficient stock exchanges in
the world.

************************************************** ****
Both are good possibles. OR it could be Onco simply stands for One New Cute Officer!! :D

Oh what a gorgeous pup PF!




And that ^^^ almost got me to shoot soda out of my nose. :roflmao:

Hey, I slept on top of PF for a couple of nights and we both survived. Probably a tad bit worse for wear but we both survived. :yikes:

Ready Student
 

We have a pup that is learning lesions even before school starts. :D

He now knows a mix of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda is better than tomato juice. :eew:


... And that everything he chases doesn't run/fly away or just hiss at him. :rofl:

After a late night bath he got to sleep in his crate on the porch. We'll see if he has learned the lesson. LOL

He's beautiful... makes me miss our Buddy. (Our German Sheppard, that is deeply missed by the entire family.)...and sounds eager to learn too!

Did he actually catch Pepe Le Pew or did did Pepe live to see another day?

BK is spot on about all of this, as usual. :) Years ago, our family dog was trained with commands different than normal doggie words ("sit, stay...etc.") which always worked very well. The dog learns to respond to a given sound which has a clear message for a specific action. So "at ease", and "attention" produced the same result and only confused or intimidated the stranger she was meeting. We found that to be a good thing. ;)

Onco is going to be trained with German commands. It will make for less likely counter-commands in an 'excited situation' as well the benefits mentioned before.

The bonding with son and acclimation to a family setting has gone super well (except for the meeting with Pepe :eew: ) for Onco. It has been interesting to see the non-doggie daughter-in-law and three grandkids becoming attached in just this couple weeks. Now the two students head out today to begin classes tomorrow morning. I hope they'll be able to teach my son something. :hair:





;)

Any Onco updates?

News From The Schoolhouse
 

Lesson 1. An enthusiastic student is not the same as a ready student.


Updates indeed. :faint:

As you know, Onco took to both the family environment and bonded with his working partner almost immediately from his first short patrol ride right to the full shift at the end of that week before school started. :)

When they came home on the weekend, No.1 son was working him furiously ....................... but not for any reinforcement of what the week was about. The basic discipline to get him on task was just not there. He was superior with the scent detection but was far from the head of the group in responding to commands. They returned for the second week of training hoping that the trainers encouragement of "he'll catch up" was going to happen.

Monday proved to be another day of great enthusiasm that just could not be directed. The trainers spent the last few hours of the day working with him to frankly see if it was the handler that was lacking. Their recommendation was that he was just not ready at 9 months for the training necessary and that he take another dog. Unfortunately this is an expensive business proposition involving other peoples money and HAS to produce the working results on a time schedule, not just a family pet. :( The news brought tears at home from just the short time the family had been focused on Onco.

"Erok" is the name of the 20 month old 'certified' dog that actually came from Germany the previous week. An additional $1,000 went away for the discipline certification, but it is essential for the cross training of the four specialties he will have. Particularly between 'track' and 'apprehend'.

Son has been overwhelmed with the responsiveness of Erok. The basic commands of 'stop', 'stay', 'release', 'wait', 'heel', 'come' etc. ....... only have to be given ONCE (in Germany) to get immediate reaction. This is an animal that can be trained for duty required. I will get to meet him tomorrow after his first night in what we hope will be his new home for a long time.

As for Onco, ............... To answer the question everybody had at the news, yes you can have him :D ................... for the $6,000 price. There is NO question that in time he will become an OUTSTANDING dog with a loyalty like you read about in stories, but that can't be done now. Onco is now scheduled for bomb detection with his superior scent performance, and go to Pittsburg to be the third partner of a experienced handler who plans on working with him into his retirement.

Erok spent his first two days and nights at his new home and brought the difference of a puppy and a fully developed dog. He is back at the training camp tonight and if what I saw today is an indicator, will excel during the next four weeks.

Here are a couple pics of what I hope you will be bombarded with in the near feature. ;)

Do they respond only to the owners voice? (your son) Or do they respond to anybody who knows the commands? I know the commands are in German, but is it voice recognition too?