Avonlea German Shepherds

07/16/2025

I was so pleased yesterday when this boy’s papa sent me some pics and some fun facts about this handsome guy. This is Creed, almost 3 yrs old! That green ball is his favorite toy…and his favorite treat, well, he’s appearing to look up very hopefully by the refrigerator…you guessed it- it’s ice🤣 he has a doggy bed but prefers the floor- isn’t that just typical of our pets? Buy them a nice cozy bed and they either sleep somewhere else or chew it to shreds. It appears Creed is too much a gentleman to do THAT. I just had to admire his paws- they’ve got those pencil stripes on them!! He’s just so beautiful!!

07/13/2025

This would be close to Plum and Cimarron! He’s a very special beautiful boy! Please call Kyanne if you see him!

10/29/2024

I liked the thoughts in here. Although our dogs that we breed aren’t imported, both Axel’s and the Dam we are getting have imported parents. European is the way to go in my mind, and in minds of the breeders that I have worked with the most- outstanding breeders. Germany- I know the most about their programs- is incredibly fussy about which dogs are allowed to be bred. Very high standards. Axel’s sire is a VA- which is the highest show rating you can achieve in Germany. But don’t be scared off by the word show and imagine dogs with their hind ends running an inch off the ground! No no! European, or more particularly the West German Showline dogs are amazing. To even qualify for the show competition, they have to have a minimum working title as well, which I can’t name just off the bat. Also, the way I understand, they can’t be VA (Champion) with just good looks, stamina, great temperament and working titles-their progeny has to perform as well, or out perform them as well. Often people tell me- we don’t care about titles- which I completely understand the thought process behind that. They are just saying they want a good dog! But the titles in the ancestry, the closer the better, speak for the kind of pup you are getting. So much more likely to be healthy, even tempered, beautiful, strong, proportionate. So when I’m loudly bragging about titles, it’s not because they are a nice thing to brag about, they help ME to know that I am handing over an amazing pup out of bloodlines that are truly phenomenal. And yes…they will chew. They will shed. They might possibly exhaust you at times until they grow up a little. They may drive you mildly crazy with their energy. Or not. They might be a couch potato too lol. But in the end you will have a dog that is your best friend and protector!!

I was curious as to what the most searched questions about German Shepherds were. And then I was curious about whether or not you guys were curious about this as well. If you're reading this, you're my kind of curious!According to my search, these are the top 10 most asked questions, with a brief an...

10/29/2024

It was just such a gorgeous morning the other day, and Grandma Jazz was lying in the sun with my roses glowing behind her- so pretty, (and if you don’t look too close, you won’t see the dead lantana below my geraniums in that pot, which are still very happy about life and were also glowing gorgeously in the sun) - our poor old girl is hurting in her joints- but when adequately motivated she can still go pretty fast lol. I looked out the barn window yesterday whilst doing muy paperwork (😤) and saw a rabbit just ripping like lightening across the barn yard, and I thought, gotta be a dog somewhere😅 and there was Jazz, sniffing around some bushes- she must have lost the scent🤣 sorry, I always vote for the rabbit!!!

10/18/2024

The queen is in. Any requests? Or would you just like to admire at her feet?

10/16/2024

1 year ago today our darling Kova crossed over the rainbow bridge. He was adored by all of us, just a big ol’ goofball, and Damian’s best friend. He’d jump on the trampoline, race alongside him on his dirt bike, ride on the quad, and mournfully howl when we’d play the sound of a siren in our phone🥲 A best friend- just like what a German Shepherd is. Damian walks by his little grave out in the trees where he goes hunting nearly every day right now- and is always reminded of his bestie♥️♥️♥️

10/16/2024

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10/16/2024

I am thoroughly happy to see summer finally wagging her tail in defeat…I know I’m strange, but I love winter, and wish there was more of it! But I also love the fall and the spring when it’s still cool, and the air is so fresh and crisp…the Alberta summers I grew up in were often more like Kansas falls, with some really hot days, some days we wished were hotter, and always beautiful cool evenings where we pretty much ended any social function with a bonfire outside. We almost had more fun creating our fire pit areas then arranging the rest of our yards lol. (Not quite- the flowers- oh wow)

10/16/2024

My youngest is learning Newton’s Laws of Motion- and I thought this might help him remember the Third Law 🤣

10/16/2024

Ok so I PROMISE I will post about other things besides chickens- most importantly- our handsome boy Axel and his upcoming girlfriend💞- but that’s for another time! Just an FYI- for any of you that do purchase Vital eggs (they can be found at Walmart, Dillon’s, Whole Foods…) there is a farm name stamped on the end of the carton- the one we have here was a courtesy carton from Vital- and you type in vitalfarms.com/farm and there you can type in the name and see a 360* video of the exact farm where your eggs come from. It’s pretty cool. Because our eggs go to a facility in Missouri and get shipped out from there, it’s not very likely we’d come across Castle Acres eggs very often, but I’ll post our link so you can see our farm. There’s a lot of Vital barns that have sprung up locally in the last few years and are still springing up- so you might get some local eggs!

https://vitalfarms.com/farm/castle-acres/

10/14/2024

This is during the evening run, but in the morning we have that packer going as fast as it can go which is a speed of 70 cases/hr or 25,200 eggs per hour. Obviously we don’t get that many eggs, but sometimes they are rolling in so heavy we have to slow down the belt so the packer can keep up. We are loving it!

10/14/2024

It was just so beautiful outside today as I walked out to run the egg belt. The chickens were happy as could be outside and the air was cool…we are just so thrilled to have our barn filled with healthy birds. After losing our entire flock to AI (Avian Influenza)😢, during peak lay, in December of 2023, we finally got another in early spring. They were hitting the feed and we were so excited until about 3 days after placement we were informed the barn they had come from had SE. We were devastated. But the farm they came from treated us well, and came and hand loaded all 20,000 chickens back onto the trucks. However, even though they’d been in our barn a very short time, we again had to thoroughly clean out that VERY LONG BARN AGAIN!!!! Now we are blessed with a flock we received on August 22 at 16 wks of age. We are about 8-10% short of full production- we got 18,180 eggs today! They are almost 24 weeks and in the next week or so we are guessing they will hit peak- we are hoping for well over 19,000/day. As the saying goes, you don’t know a good day unless you’ve had a bad one, and I guess that goes for flocks of chickens too. We are so grateful!! A huge shout out to Vital who walked us through every step of the way, and went the extra mile to help us find a new flock and all that goes with it!!!