I am not sure if you still remember me. But quite a few years ago I got from you a German Shepherd that I ended up naming Drakuul. He was born February 27th, 1994. His dad was Jago. I know this has been quite a while that I have send you anything, but I wanted to catch you up on Drakuul's life.

I got Drakuul when he was 7 weeks old. I was so excited that I by mistake came by one week to early thinking it had already been 8 weeks. For reasons unknown to me you decided to have him pick me and take him home that day. I took him home from Spokane to Seattle and he sat on my lap never wined or complained. He let me know when he had to go to the bathroom.

I got him home and that was the start of the closest relationship with anything I have ever been in. We where inseparable for most of his life. And he gave me more fun and enjoyment than I could have ever imagined. I was always pretty into the outdoors, and we spent most of the time there.

This being my first own dog, I was much a novice with training, but he was so forgiving with that. He was incredibly well trained. Very well I might say. People commented that they had rarely seen a dog that listened so well and behave himself. When he was about 1 ½ year old we started training in Schutzhund. He had the drive for sure. Bite training was so much fun for him that he made more noise in the car when he saw other dogs being trained than the dogs that where doing the training.

We got pretty close to getting Schutzhund 1. And he would have had no problem getting it. But a bad slip in a full run resulted in a torn cruciate ligament, and I decided not to continue with that because his drive was so high. And I was afraid he would do it again. So I decided to do something completely different. Combining what we liked to do, hiking and backpacking and something that could service the community.

So I started looking into SAR. I got in contact with an organization called GSSD (German Shepherd Search Dogs www.gssd.org). It is a completely volunteer organization. They take the dog and trainer, and help them become a full SAR team. So, you train your own dog. And after 3 or so years on average you can if you are lucky, get on the ready searcher list.

Drakuul and I took to this like a fish to water. So much so that Drakuul and I became a ready searcher team in less time than any dog team ever in this organization. It took us 13 months to become a ready searcher. The shortest by a few years.

We did search and rescue for five or so years at which point I decided to retire him (he was eight and a half years old at this time). Throughout that time we did about forty to fifty active searches a year all over Washington. All volunteer work. He trained and worked his heart out. We did mostly wild back-country searches where we cross country off trails and he is completely off leash air scenting. Among many things, he was helicopter-trained and never freaked out one bit. And drove me more than I ever was able to drive him.

He was by far the best and most motivated search dog I have ever seen. His biggest problem was that when he got to put his vest on and we were on a real search (not training), he did not want to quit. And when I stopped for a break, I frequently had to tie him to my backpack because he did not want to quit. He knew when it was training and when it was real.

He taught me more than I could ever teach him. There was one story that my wife keeps telling people. We were doing an exhibition search for a group of Boy Scouts. One of their dads was an FBI agent. It was a simple search (or intended to be a simple search) where I told the kids to hide in an indicated rough area.

We waited about twenty minutes and went to search. We searched for about one hour and I was getting more and more frustrated and angry. And Drakuul worked for the first ten minutes to clear the area. After that, he looked at me as if I was insane (how close to the truth he was). He never indicated, never pointed, never gave any sign. And more and more frustrated I became. My wife took a picture, Drakuul relaxed and looking at me. Me fuming at this point, something that is so clear from the picture. This picture is hanging still in our hallway to remind me. I knew that they were in this area – I had told them to be there for crying out loud. This was supposed to be simple! So, back to base I go after one hour. And after walking ten minutes, Drakuul took off like a bat out of hell. And he went right for the kids, straight as an arrow. They were about two miles away from where they were supposed to be.

What this taught me was that I am no more than a driver to get him there in the car and that I had to trust him implicitly. The FBI agent later said that he had been incredibly impressed with SAR dogs. Two months later is when we were placed on the ready searcher list.

Two months ago, May 29th to be exact, I had to make the most difficult decision in my life. He fell asleep in my arms after thirteen years and three months of being my steadfast companion. And my life has not been the same since.

Writing this has been really hard for me. He still is in my mind 110% of the time. But I wanted to describe what one GSD you bred had done in his life. I added some pictures to give you an idea of what he looked like. He was the best-looking GSD I have ever seen and looked very much like much like his dad.