Measuring up

We're comparing notes: how does Dieter measure up, compared with his brothers? First of all, Dieter's a moving target, so we were trying to get him to hold still long enough for us to read the numbers. It was almost as funny as when Lloyd and I tried to weigh the little guy on a home scale. Lloyd's back didn't want to do a clean and jerk with a wriggling German Shepherd. "I know," said Lloyd. "I'll kneel on the scale, you see what the scale says, and then I'll lift Dieter, and you check it again."

Um, right. According to this method, Dieter either weighed 40 pounds or 110 pounds. "It's somewhere in the middle," I told Lloyd. Scrap that method. That Saturday we took him to the vet and weighed him. 71 pounds.

So, the height thing. Again, Dieter's parents are still learning. "Um, what point are we measuring to?" I asked. "Here," Lloyd said definitively. "Or, maybe here...Where's that German Shepherd book? Let's see if it says how to do it." Poor Dieter: I'm sure he thinks he's fallen into a nest of cuckoos!

This is our official verdict, and I quote: If we measured him right where his neck joins his back he was about 27 inches; midway between the top of his back and his chest, he was 24 inches. See what I mean? We're clueless!

We hear that his brother--the future K9 cop in Oklahoma--weighs 80 pounds. I think Dieter's Illinois brother looks bigger too. Last week my cousin sent me a picture of a 130 pound GSD (and I think Dieter might be related). I told Lloyd (after almost fainting and falling off my chair after seeing the dog picture): "We're going to have to start binding Dieter. And not just his feet--the whole dog."

Here's a compare and contrast set of images to show how Dieter's changed since we got him in January.