German Shepherds and Children - Part 1

Several years ago, a friend of my sister's who had very small children told her that she had always wanted a German Shepherd, but her husband was aghast at the idea.  "A German Shepherd?" he asked.  "With little kids? Are you crazy?"

When I was 2 years old, my father went to serve in Korea (he was an officer in the Army) and my mother went to live in Indiana, with her two small children, while he was away.  The house that she happened to rent was near a cornfield, and one night when she was standing in her back yard, she noticed a man hiding in it, watching her.  She promptly called the state police, and the office who came out told her he had only one piece of advice for her:  "Get a German Shepherd."

She did...a 1 year old mostly tan German Shepherd that she named Brutus.  This promptly solved the problem of the man in the cornfield, but it also solved another problem that she had, with me.

After multiple surgeries as a baby, I was slow to develop motor skills, and at the age of 2, I was still unable to walk.  Thus far, I had not shown any motivation to learn, either, but this changed when Brutus came to live with us.

Brutus helped me learn how to stand.  My mother says I would literally pull myself up by him, and he would let me.  I learned to walk with his assistance, as well.  She said I have two favorite places to grab him by when I was doing this...the first was by his tail, and the second was by his mouth.  I can't imagine that any of this was pleasant for him, even though I was very small, but he never showed the slightest bit of impatience or even reluctance when it came to helping me.  According to my mother, we would walk around and around the dining room table in this manner, until I finally learned to walk by myself.

Interestingly enough, he also seemed to be a guardian of sorts for me.  When my mother had to go into the hospital for an operation, and my father's aunt came over to care for us, she put Brutus outside the entire time because she was afraid of him, and I promptly began to walk into walls.  Although nobody realized it at the time, I had a visual defect that made me extremely accident prone, and I wonder, now, if Brutus might not have known something about this, as well.

My parents did not have Brutus nearly long enough.  Two years later, my father had to go serve in Vietnam, and my mother returned back to the Netherlands with us while he was gone.  Brutus was given away to some people who owned a farm.  I was too young to retain a clear memory of him, but for years, as a child, I had an imaginary dog that I named "Brutee"  Now, of course, I realize that even as young as I was, I must have remembered him, and "Brutee" was the name I must have called him as a baby.