How did he know he is young?
 

Today we were at the Royal Caribbean terminal in Fort Lauderdale.

We had returned from a weeklong cruise, and there were 5000 passengers and their luggage to disembark from the ship. Others were already getting on board.

Amidst all the chaos, we were at the top of an escalator waiting to descend. The TSA guy wouldn't let us go down because it was too crowded down there and had to wait for permission to release the next group of passengers.
All of a sudden my husband said, "Look! A German Shepherd!"

Sure enough, at the bottom of the stairs was a black working dog with his handler. Tail wagging from side to side, he was conscientiously sniffing all the luggage all the while looking at his handler with a doggie smile on his face. The handler kept petting him, rubbing his neck, his head, and even snout--my heart just melted.

I was wistfully looking at them from above thinking that I wouldn't be able to touch him or even go near him, when all of a sudden this lady approaches and the handler allows her to pet him!

Well, that was all I needed. Having German Shepherd fever and having missed my Hans horribly all week, I made a beeline for them as soon as they released us to go downstairs.

"I saw you allowing someone to pet him," I said, "is it still okay?"
I know lots of people were coming downstairs and the dog had to work.
The handler was very nice and saw my boys looking up at him hopefully, so he said, "Okay, for a little while."
While my two little boys delightfully went for that sleek black fur, I took out my phone and proudly showed the officer a picture of my dog.

"Ah, you have a Shepherd! He looks young."
I was actually very surprised that he could tell, and told him Hans is indeed only a year old. Those of you in the know, I'm dying to find out how he could tell. Was it the head, was it the expression in his eyes, what?

The TSA dog was 5 1/2, he said. I forgot to ask the dog's name.

The dog was wonderful around my boys, submissively flattening his ears as he got petted. I, too, sneaked in a little chin rub :wub:

I thanked the officer, told him the dog was beautiful, and let them go back to their work. The dog was trained to detect everything, including bombs and food.
Nerves of steel, really good temperament, not intimidated by 5000 passengers disembarking, and friendly enough to happily allow children to approach. I was really proud to see such a good representative of the breed.

As we were leaving, I asked my little one if he was happy that he got to pet the working German Shepherd. "Yes mama," he replied, "but why didn't he give us kisses?" :rofl:

He might have just noticed your dog didn't look very filled out, although maybe he noticed the teeth. I'm not really sure what kind of picture you showed him or what quality it was but a really easy way to guess a dog's age is by looking at the teeth. One year olds have sharp bright white luminous teeth that practically glow in pictures.

Yeah the teeth are always a dead giveaway :) and the colouring too, GSDs often go grey quite early.
Also being a dog handler he likely deals with GSDs all the time so is try used to what they look like at different life stages :)

Hey maybe we need a "guess this dogs age" picture thread :) See how good we are :D

I second this idea!!

No,no teeth... I will show you the picture later when I come back from driving my children to school.

I'm going to guess that maybe it's the reverse mask. I say this because almost everyone who meets Mikko thinks that he is about 2 years old...he is 7 1/2. The looks on people's faces when I tell them his real age are priceless. It probably helps that we keep Mikko very lean and most people associate being lean with a young dog too.

I hate guessing dog ages, I think even vets take a stab in the dark 99% of time. It's like guessing breeds without a pedigree, you might be bang on or completely off :p

Now I did have a discussion with a previous vet regarding age, I was looking at a rescue dog at the time. She told me the two main things she looks at are teeth and joints to try and guess age

I find I look at size for puppies and how filled out they are for adolescents but I just ask age if I'm curious

OK, here is what the officer saw on an iPhone:
http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum...1&d=1363010393

I would say that he looks young too. I'm usually pretty good at guessing an age of a dog. My oldest dog fools everyone, I would be fooled to if I didn't know her.

What a great picture of Hans! Looking at the photo I would have guessed young as well, but only because of the expression and that he looked not filled out? in the photo. I think it's much easier to tell in person than in a photo.

I'm glad you're back home with Hans, I'm sure he's glad you're back home :D. It must have been a long trip for you without him.