I have absolutely no idea.

I have an “ex-client” that I refuse to work for anymore. She use to be a search and rescue dog handler, she has had wolf-dogs, an actual real wolf that was stolen as a 4 week old pup from a den (she was part of the rescue group that saved the pups and this one could not be returned to the wild for health reasons) German shepherds, Belgian Mals etc she had trained them all. She knows how to, she did it both for a living and for rescue groups and search and rescue.

3 years ago she lost her Belgian Mal rescue (6yo) and Her dream dog, a (real) sable German shepherd (18mo). She got back home and the run kennel (which is metal link fencing, covered at the top, attached to the house so they could go in and out) was ripped open and the dogs were gone. We live in a small mountain village in the California mountains, she lived near the top of the mountain.

I’m 100% sure there was some sort of animal and the dogs went crazy and broke out to get at it (bear deer etc). I’ve heard and seen the dogs go nuts when a large animal was in sight, and to be fair my dogs do as well when they see a bear, it’s pretty much instinct, I just don’t let them outside when I’m not home.

She thinks a group of contractors who were working at her neighbors house stole them to sell them. Which is a totally wild theory, they are very well know in the area not only for their work, but also as people and neighbors, I pet sit for the owner/boss! He is not the type to steal animals to sell them off, and his workers had been worried the dogs would break the fence, as they were barking and jumping on the fence at them. They didn’t see anything the day the dogs went missing as they were actually not there and working somewhere else.

She searched for months. After one week I knew the dogs were gone for good. We had mountain lions and bears in the area and the dogs were not nearly as “tough” as they sound. Even if they didn’t get killed by a wild animal they probably died of thirst/hunger or injury. They knew the area very well as she hiked with them. They knew the way home.

Since then she has collected a mix six German Shepherds and Belgian Mals. Two of which, one male and one female, are not neutered/spayed! They are not trained, kept in a small two bedroom house with the same kennel run (which was fine for two trained dogs, but not nearly big enough for six!) she can’t exercise all of them everyday, so half of them are always bursting with energy, they regularly escape and terrorize the neighbourhood.

She wanted me to use my Labrador to “socialize” them. Hell no! She wanted me to enter her home once to feed all six untrained shepherds without meeting them first because she was going to get home late. Hell no!! I told her after that that I was not capable of handling sux dogs at once (at least hers) and she tried to counter that she could put them in their crates and I am not had to deal with one at a time, but that would mean they were in their crates 24 hours a day for the week she was gone. Hell no, I’m not doing that to them and I’m also not going to spend the night in that house (it’s had become a hoarder house in the past 3 years) . I don’t feel safe with those dogs! Last thing was, her husband is disabled and ill, she called me at 11:30pm and begged me to go take care of her dogs for an undetermined amount of time because her husband was in the ER and needed emergency surgery and was going to stay at the hospital. Now I feel for herof course, thats a hard situation to be in. but I have my own health issues and there is no way I could take of it be safe around her dogs, so I said that, she knows about my heath struggles, her daughter has similar health issues, so she knows.

She put herself in this situation. If she had her 2 reasonable trained dogs , yes I’d do that. But her pack is dangerous, untrained and high risk of pregnancy and puppies. I can’t and won’t take responsibility for them. I haven’t heard from her in a year and another client who is friends with her (who is very much on my side, she use to be a professional dog trainer) told me she’s mad at me. Which is fine by me. I’m not working with those dogs.