Dobermannzwinger The lone star

Every dog is fantastic and we would like to present Dobermans and other breeds from month to month. Please feel free and send us information about your dog!

Parents: Swift Run's Brother Brix, SchH III, IPO III, ZTP V1A, FH
x Farina v Bahnhof, SchH I, AD, CD

Arras was the most willing to please puppy, and as he grew into adulthood, that never stopped. Whatever I wanted to do, he wanted to do. He was extremely easy to train because of his clear head and his willingness. He enjoyed the bitework immensely, but was never so much over the top that it was difficult to train him. If you were clear about what you wanted, he gave it to you, no matter how jazzed he was for the man. He is great with people and dogs and kids. He is very easy to be around, loves to lie on his back with all his legs up in the air, and he smiles when he greets me at the door.

The neighbor's cat seems to be his latest hobby. That, and chewing nylabones. He loves going on walks and never wants to be left at home if I'm going to train dogs.

The other thing that I think worth mentioning is his very close call with death 2 years ago. He came out of his crate and fell down, and began holding up his leg. We thought maybe he had torn his cruciate ligament, but it was the weekend, so I treated him with pain killer, waiting for Monday to take him to the vet, knowing that nothing could be done until the beginning of the week anyway. Within 24 hours, his leg started swelling up. The pain killer was doing nothing for him. He was in extreme pain, and I ended up taking him to the local university vet hospital. They had no idea what was going on, but they finally took some fluid from his leg and was bacterial in nature. They needed to run a culture on it to determine what was the best antibiotic to use, and in the meantime warned me that they could not rule out necrotizing fascitis -- flesh eating bacteria. He was on the edge of death as the bacteria went through his body - they were treating with general antibiotics and giving him pain patches and then they went in to do surgery to put drains in to get the bacteria out. They warned me that they could open his leg and see all sorts of necrotic tissue that would have to be scraped away, and that they might need to amputate his leg. Meanwhile, they determined he definitely had flesh eating bacteria. The surgery went extremely well, no tissue looked necrotic, but he could not put any weight on his back leg. They told me that the cruciate ligmament was most likely ruptured as a result of the bacterial infection.

After a month of water rehab, Arras began to put weight on the leg. Xrays showed that he did not have any cartilage in the knee - that surely the bacterial infection ate that. He has done really well, and only just now, 2 years later, is he starting to slow down on that leg. There really is no way to determine how that bacterial infection started, except that we know that bacteria is a bacteria that is found on their skin. Our best guess is that he licked a sore on his leg and the bacteria entered his body that way.

Dear Chris,

I am proud that your Arras is a part of my website now. Thank you so much for the info and pictures of him. I wish you many many years with your beautiful boy!
Have a Merry Christmas!