Faithful Shepherds

"Will"

UKC Ch ptd Faithful's Thy Will Be Done DM A/N, Ee -/-

Will's story is very bittersweet. Breeding dogs is so difficult and can be extremely heartbreaking. Will's story is one that is a breeder's worst nightmare and yet, everything that happened we know, happened for a reason. We trust that his life was worth the love we got to share, the knowledge we gained, and the growing desire to seek transparency among breeders.

Will was a stunning sable male from our Rocky x Promise litter which was a complete outcross. Rocky is a beautiful AKC CH stallion of a boy and we love him very much. His beautiful coat, movement, and temperament were exactly what we were looking for in a stud dog when we decided to breed Promise. Unfortunately, sometimes even when we think we are making a good breeding decision, we learn that we are not the masters of creation. Rock and Promise were the parents of 6 beautiful puppies. 2 black and tans and four sables. Of the 6 puppies, 3 were diagnosed with severe mega-esophagus and were humanely euthanized due to aspiration pneumonia at the age of 7 weeks. This left us with Will, his sable sister, and longcoat sable brother. A few months later, Will's sister developed ataxia and abnormal proprioception of her hind legs. Her diagnosis is still unclear, but she has some sort of neurological/spinal disease that has resulted in her being uncoordinated and sometimes loses control of her movement. Also, Will's brother has had episodes of collapse and though a heart disease has not been identified, this is a severe, life-threatening abnormality. Will was the only "normal" pup out of the litter and we kept him for the first year of his life contemplating his potential to be a future part of our breeding program. He was beautiful, confident, happy, and everything we were hoping for otherwise. We showed him in UKC conformaiton and he earned points towards his championship easily, but we ultimately decided to find him a family of his own. Being a small kennel, we have to be very selective in who we keep and the more dogs we have, the less time and resources we have to devote to each of them. Due to the health issues all of his siblings had/were going through we thought it would be very irresponsible to keep him as a breeding prospect. We were heartbroken about the decision, but we were thrilled to find him such a wonderful home with our friend Shelly and her family. Shelly is the kind of owner who would stop at nothing for her dogs and we are so blessed to have her in the Faithful Shepherds family.

In September 2021, we received the heartbreaking news that Will had opened a door to let himself outside, ran, and was struck by a truck which killed him instantly. Words can't describe the pain and sadness we have felt since Will's passing. We are so thankful to have had him visit us over the summer! I just wish I would have hugged him one more time.

The struggles we faced with our Rocky x Promise litter led to shedding some light on the genes associated with the development of congenital megaesophagus in the German Shepherd Dog. We donated DNA and tissues samples from all of our dogs in the breeding program and submitted them for research at Clemson University. Genetic sequencing revealed a lot of information and will help scientists better understand this disease in the GSD. It also led to more research of the pedigrees I'm familiar with and helped me be more cautious in deciding whether to breed Promise again. We are hoping there will be a DNA test for this disease in the future, as it is a difficult trait to phenotypically predict. Also, we have always been very transparent with talking about any issues with our dogs. There are positive and negative traits in every line, but we discovered that in our research of different pedigrees, very very few breeders were willing to share if they've had this disease in their lines. We are hoping that one day, this disease can be limited by health testing, and that breeders decide to use the knowledge provided and be truthful about its frequency in their dogs.

We had so much planned for this wonderful boy, but sometimes we must be reminded that it is not our will, but "Thy Will Be Done." We love you, Will! Forever and Always.

Pictured below: Will, Walker, Pieta, Promise, Hope, and Judge