Share examples of good nerve!

[shadmuffin07]

I love a shepherd who has good nerves, they should alll be like this! I have many examples but heres one story...

When i was taking a high school class, we were to do a 20 min power point presentation with a prop. I chose to do a presentation on the german shepherd and schutzhund, and my dog ended up being the prop- for demonstration!
I made sure I was able to bring him in during classes by asking the principle. I brought my working dog in while there was over a thousand kids switching classes. it was very noisy and very hectic! As you can imagine, many high school kids are preoccupied and they might have noticed him only when he was extra close to them and jumped, shouted, some even screamed. Others noticed him right away and either kept their distance or came to see him. Some came running to him. During this chaos, my dog was so calm and collected, but happy, and he was at a walk a little ahead of me for the most part, altho I made him heel as I got in the crowd. He had a big presence no doubt, with ppl thinking he was a drug dog even. He'd even look back at me as if he was checking on me to see if I was keeping up. While he was accepting of the ppl who came up to him, he didnt let any of the chaos bother him at all, and nothing spooked him.
When I got to my class, the ppl were excited to see him, and he warmed up, to them, even giving out kisses. During the other presentations, he remained quiet and in a down. Once our turn came, I put him at a sit for about ten minutes at the front of class-this was when I was talking about the breed and what schutzhund was. For the demonstration we went outside, again although he'd never been to my school before, he was not distracted while I went through the exercises.
As a sidenote-the class thought the presentation was awesome, and they reaaaally enjoyed the obedience and protection. They didnt know a dog with protection training could have his temperament, or the on/off switch. The principle came out to view the presentation as well, and after we finished, I let my dog to some tricks-my principle got on his knees and let him jump over him...what a great principle, but an even greater dog-to remain so put together and focused, sociable and reliable in a chaotic situation that would have most pet dogs go nuts.
I'm very proud of him, a good dog in this breed with strong nerves will always surpass expectations

[Castlemaid]

Another great example of what a GSD should be! Thanks for posting shadmuffin!

[horsegirl]

Is this good nerve? or what would you all call this? I was on a walk , dusk . off leash, alone one eve.
Got into an argument with another dog walker, My dogs were ignoring his, his dog was agressivly in my dogs face. When he started speaking to me in an threatening tone, Louie my 3 1/2 yr old took notice. Louie just sat down and calmly was watching the encounter. The man finally started to walk away, after about 50- 100 ft he suddenly turned around and started walk towards me again speaking threatenly. Louie jogged towards him , stopped about 20 ft from him, and just stood there. I told the man (not know if my statement was true) that my dog wold protect me and that he should stop walking towards me. the man stopped for a few seconds then started in again walking towards me and shouting. Every step he took Louie stepped closer to him, no growling , or barking just on high alert. I repeated my self to this man as I was getting concerned, I had no idea what Louie would do, The man finally noticed that Louie was on full alert to him, at this point the man decided that my dog truly may protect me, turned around at stalked off. Louie watched him until I recalled him , running back to me all tail waggy and happy. Needless to say I was proud of my boy. At the same time I was made aware of the loyalty of my boy, what I have in a dog and am more aware of my surroundings now.
So is that an example of nerve or something else?

[bocron]

I have a new pup(she's my new heart dog for sure). A few weeks back we went out in the early morning. We live not too far from a small airport where they teach flying lessons. They also have bi-plane rides. Anyway one of the smaller planes was directly over our heads and making that very distinctive buzzing sound for a loooooong time. The new pup startled for just a sec (it really did suddenly appear as if it was going to come down on the house) and then she stopped and looked at me and my reaction, she looked at the older GSDs who I'd taken out as well and then kind of shrugged her doggy shoulders and went to find a place to pee. It was very interesting to me to note her awareness of the pack and how she should react. I get a number of dogs in my daycare who NEVER figure that out. I have one young GSD female that freaks and barks EVERY time the wind rustles the canopy on the tent. EVERY time, even after weeks and weeks. She never notices that no one else cares, even Uma, my pup looks at me like "What's her damage?" LOL.
Annette

[sparra]

My 4month old is pretty unflappable so far. I have a sthill blower that is louder than a chain saw and he just lays there while I blow our verandah (porch) and gets covered in dirt cause he can't be bothered moving out of the way. I also have to vacuum around him if he is sleeping as he just doesn't care.
We have taken him out to other peoples places where he has to sit outside while we are inside out of sight and he sits quietly at the door. He has been great with strangers and is quite happy to say hello and is really relaxed when we have guests and puppy preschool was so much fun as he LOVED it and was a real social butterfly so we are pretty chuffed with him as he is showing really good signs of being a confident little chap.

[jdh520]

My shepherd who is pretty food aggressive came with me to our deer camp with other family who had their dogs as well. one of these dogs that was there was a 15 year old jack russell who was blind! My shepherd loves other dogs but just doesn't like them taking his food. Im doing something in the back room and I hear him giving out these yelps so I run to find him and the poor blind jack russell is trying to eat my shepherds food. (Which was Royal Canine 24 at the time and the kibble was bigger than the russell's head! haha) Anyway mine was just laying down looking at him yelping at him saying "stop please thats mine thats mine!" No harm was done and I really thought he knew his limitations on that dog.

[Freestep]

My dogs are funny. They're pretty unflappable with most environmental things--I was at a dogshow with Vinca and it was raining, we were standing outside the door of a building, and someone accidentally "temperament tested" her by opening an umbrella right in front of her. She startled, but held her ground and looked at the umbrella with curiosity.

Fireworks, gunshots, etc. don't bother them--in fact, Luka loads when she hears gunshots, as we used them during protection training.

But a BATH?!? Oh Lord have mercy, how could you torture us so?!? Let us shiver, whimper, and moan.

When Vinca got her tattoo, she whined about it and kept trying to get up, but wagged her tail wildly the whole time. Same when she got a foxtail in her foot and I was trying to doctor it.

The only time I've seen Vinca really scared is when big dogs snark at her. The other day I gave my 130 lb. Akbash dog, Whaley, a treat, and Vinca broke her door training and went zooming out the front door. I called her back, she ignored me, and attempted to take the treat out of Whaley's mouth. She learned very quickly that was a bad idea, and came screaming back inside, tail tucked, looking at me like "Why didn't you warn me?!?"

I had to laugh at her. "I tried to warn you! What did we learn today, little miss?"

[Lilie]

Here's my opinion on good nerves:

Late yesterday afternoon I was pulling weeds from my raised flower garden. Hondo was laying next to me, checking out the weeds I was tossing on him (silly game, but he loves it). I was sitting on the landscape timber edge reaching under a bush and hit a wasp nest. They came out at full attack mode. When I jumped to get away I fell over Hondo. Scrambling to get to my feet and him entangled in my limbs we rolled around a second or two. Finally I had to crab crawl just to get out of stinging range. Hondo remained glued to me attempting to snap up the wasps (the same way a dog might try to catch a fly). As I'm crab crawling I'm screaming at him "LEAVE IT..LEAVE IT..LEAVE IT..LEAVE IT!"

We both made it a safe distance away, I managed to only get stung once. I couldn't find any stings on him.

After the wasp ambush, it occurred to me that under normal circumstances, a dog would usually jump and move away if a person was to fall on them stepping on their tail and legs and what ever else happened to be in the path of escape. But Hondo didn't. He remained glued tight to me, making escape more difficult but he wasn't worried or concerned about being smashed under me, he was more concerned about the wasps.

We did send in additional troops to wipe out the nest. Hondo and I stayed a safe distance away...supervising of course.

[cta]

the other night i took my dog up the street for some fireworks. the place we ended up was not too hectic, but just busy enough that he would have plenty to see. he was scoping the scene...watching all of the people around him, etc. he finally laid down on the sidewalk and sat calmly next to me when all of a sudden this little kid with a light sword comes out of nowhere and starts poking it at his face repeatedly. mind you, the sidewalk is rather wide and there was plenty of room for people to pass in front of us with out even getting near us. anyway, i put my hand out immediately in front of my dog to shield him and told the mother that it probably wasn't a good idea to have her 20 lb child harrassing an 80 lb dog. well the kid didn't stop right away, but my dog didn't even bat an eyelash. he just sat there like a statue and stared at the kid until she finally stopped. he didn't make one peep, didn't open his mouth to try and eat the sword...nothing. they finally went away, but i guess they weren't done because the brother came back and started waving his hands in front of my dog's face. again, i tell them please don't make sudden movements right in front of him...he likes to chase fast things. well apparently that night he didn't...he just sat there again probably thinking, really mom can't you make these buggers go away?!?!? finally after two small children assaulting my dog, the mom told them DON'T TOUCH HIM HE'S GOING TO BITE YOU! well lady, if my dog was going to bite your children it probably would've been the first two times they accosted him and if he was going to bite somebody, he wouldn't be there in the first place. some people aren't very smart. needless to say, i was very proud of him.

[valb]

We actually used to take lawn chairs out front and watch
fireworks with Tamsen. She'd lay next to us while pretty much
the entire street exploded. The first couple of (mostly ILLEGAL)
fireworks she would "buff" a little bit at and then she would
almost visibly relax and go "Oh yeah, right, it's the Fourth" and
watch them the rest of the night! It was pretty amazing. We
have neighbor's parties and people walking back and forth who
would say hi to us and as they went by sort of do a double take
"Wait a minute, that's a DOG lying there!" when all of theirs are
probably tranqued and inside!

The only other example that comes to mind is one time we stayed
in a hotel (older) where she got on a creaky elevator with us
(never having seen one before) and sat quietly for the ride, with
people getting on and off with pretty shocked expressions. That
sure made momma's heart burst with pride, I'll tell ya!