Prince's Sister - Part 1

Shortly after I had realized I was going to have to socialize Prince on my own, I discovered that the same lady who had bred him had a new litter of German Shepherd puppies for sale.  At exactly the same time, my sister told me she had decided to get a large dog, and I figured the stars had aligned in Prince's favor.  After all, who could be a better friend for Prince than his own sister or brother?

After convincing my sister that a sibling of Prince was exactly what she wanted, I contacted the breeder and explained the situation to her.

She told me that she had several males and females left...and one very special puppy that she was not sure she wanted to sell.  Her name was Sweet Pea, and she was the runt of the litter.  When she was born, she had been only half the size of her siblings, and they had taken her away from her mother and bottle fed her to keep her alive.

"I don't know if she'll ever be as big as her brothers and sisters, or even as big as a standard German Shepherd," she said.  "She's still only half as big as they are."

Then she added how hard it was for Sweet Pea to be with her brothers and sisters, because they all bullied her so badly.  "She's like a toy compared to them," she said.

"If you would like to sell her," I said, "she'd be perfect for my sister.  She'd rather have a German Shepherd that's not as big as Prince."

Thankfully, she agreed to sell her to us.

When my sister brought Sweet Pea home, she was so small, she looked like a fox kit.  My sister named her Liesel.  Beyond excited at the thought of Prince having a friend, I brought him over a week later...only to have Liesel run screaming from him in my mother's yard and hide under a bench.

"Well, what did you expect?" my sister asked, irritably.  "How would you feel if you saw a giant come walking down the street toward you?"

Poor Prince tried every way he could think of to win Liesel over (by ignoring her, trying to nuzzle her, even barking at her) but she refused to have anything to do with him.  Eventually I simply gave up, and only brought Prince over to see her one more time, years later, at my sister's house.

It was an experience neither my sister or I would ever forget.