I grew up with dogs my entire life. We had a mixed breed that my mom found before I was born. He was a small dog, probably 25-30 pounds at the most. We then had 2 Chihuahuas, a male and a female. My grandmother had a husky. 2 Brussels Griffons joined us later on, also a male and female. In 2009 we had a toy poodle and 2 years ago we got our first German Shepherd. My entire life I grew up with small dogs and I had always wanted a large one. Watching movies like Balto, All Dogs go to Heaven (my username), Air Bud, Beethoven, The Fox and the Hound, Lady and the Tramp, The Plague Dogs, Lassie, The Littlest Hobo, Due South (Diefenbaker), Homeward Bound, 101 Dalmatians, Good Boy, I could go on for a REALLY long time. As a kid I used to buy books for the day that I would own a large dog. I would read these books all day. Soooo many different breeds, taking zoo many dog breed matching tests, watching so many shows. I had gone through so many resources in preparation for that magical day. At came to the point where I didn't care so much about the breed, I just wanted to have a large dog. So one day about 2 and a half years ago, I convinced my mom and my step dad to get another dog. We looked around for a good breeder and we found one. I read their website and everything seemed perfect. These people were very passionate. We scheduled a meeting with them and we talked for about an hour and a half. My mom and I got along with them great. Unfortunately they didn't have any dogs for sale. The woman and her son wanted to keep the few that had remaining so they could breed more and the woman's son didn't have to sell anymore (He was probably in his 30's). They were in the process of selling a dog, but they weren't certain if the person was a good match, so if that deal didn't go through, we were next in line. The man ended up getting the dog, so we found another breeder. She had a new litter and after 3 weeks of our first meeting with her (The longest 3 weeks of my life) we took home our dog. Bumpy training experience and we're still in the process, but I've enjoyed every second of it. I decided to name his Charlie, after the character "Charlie B. Barkin" from the T.V. show and movie "All Dogs Go to Heaven".
Behold my giant wall of text!