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My basic info
Breed
Australian Shepherd/Great Pyrenees
Color
White - with Tan, Yellow or Fawn
Age
4 years 2 months old, Young
Size
Med. 26-60 lbs (12-27 kg) (when grown)
Weight
–
Sex
Female
Pet ID
Courtesy Post
My details
Good with kids
Good with dogs
Housetrained
My story
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Here's what the humans have to say about me:
COURTESY POST - ROUND ROCK, TEXAS
Please say hello to Masha. She turned 1 year old on August 5, 2021. Her litter-mate Aspen had DNA testing done, so we know she is approximately 60% Australian Shepherd and 30% Great Pyrenees. She is the size of an Aussie, and not a Pyr.
She is sweet, good with children (ours are 3, 6, and 8 years old and we frequently have friends over to play), crate trained, potty trained, sleeping-in-child's-bed-at-night trained, she does not really jump on people (unless you've ignored her when you get home), and she does not bark when people come to the front door. We have a dozen chickens behind an electric fence, and she has been great with them and guarded them well. She would help herd them with my 8-year-old if the chickens ever escaped their fenced-in area! She never showed any aggression toward the chickens and we were intentional in getting her in their fence-in area since we first got her.
She is friendly with other dogs and loves playing! If she is unable to get close to sniff a dog, she barks a lot at them, but once she is playing with them all is well. She travels well in the car, as well, out of a crate.
She's always eaten a raw meat diet with us (80% muscle meat, usually ground turkey, 20% organ meat, usually chicken liver, and 20% raw meaty bone, usually chicken legs). She's really healthy and beautiful and is pretty easily trained (with the exception of barking at other dogs).
As far as veterinary care goes, since we got her she's had one rabies vaccine (thimerisol-free), the 12-month heartworm preventative shot, and her vet at Paz Vet in Austin has requested that we wait to spay her until 12-18 mos, which is coming up soon. She had her first heat around age 1. She has never had fleas, ticks, or heartworm (was tested this month).
Her undesirable qualities include barking at backyard dogs (we have about 6 houses that back up to our yard and almost all of them have dogs), not being leash trained (if she sees another dog on a walk she wants to lunge at and bark at them until they are no longer in view), general ways of expressing boredom like chewing paper plates and paper on the floor, and the fact that we haven't trained her very much past auto-sitting, "leave it", and crate/pottying.
We adopted her in November of 2020, and in April of 2021 I learned that I have Epstein-Barr Virus, which is a chronic condition that lies dormant and re-activates typically in times of stress. It presents itself in me as chronic fatigue, which is really hard to deal with homeschooling three small children with a puppy. I also got pregnant in May of 2021, and spent the first 5 months nauseous and exhausted! I am getting worried about life with a newborn and Masha since I have had to halt my training of her for so many months.
We have tried our best to make Masha work for our family, but we really believe she should have better dog-parents who have the time and energy to continue to train her and love her well. We are a homeschooling family and my husband works from home, so she is rarely left in her crate (usually just during church). Her barking at neighbor dogs during the day is a significant problem for my husband, who works here during the day. We have tried training her to to ignore dog sounds using a class from Conscious Dog Training, and when that wasn't working we (shamefully) got her a bark collar. Well, that doesn't really work either! I hate that we use it on her.
My cousin is currently watching her for us on her 37-acre farm, but they have free range chickens and cats and Masha chases them too much for her to keep living there. Because we moved her to this farm for the time being, we transitioned her to eating kibble and she’s gotten on flea and tick medicine.
Thank you again, Nancy.
If you are interested in adopting Masha, please email Rachel at: rachelvangsnes@gmail.com or call 956-878-8158
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