While at school I began looking after pets while their owners were on holiday and after university I worked for the Animal Aunts Agency in the UK.

One of my jobs was looking after an animal rescue. It was there that I met Shanie, a gorgeous, big dark shepherd. He was very quick and willing to work for a kind word and also protective of his family and friends. He loved to put his head in my lap to be stroked. His head was as long as my thigh bone!

After looking after and training many different dogs, Shanie was the one who had a special place in my heart.

When I married and came to Dallas, Texas I spent several months trying to find a dog like Shanie. Though, not quite as big, Bodeus has many of the characteristics I loved in Shanie.

Bodeus is very easy to train and loves to play with tennis balls, in fact he’ll do almost anything for them!

He is also a very stable dog, when a very small child ran up and threw her arms around him in Petco, he was very gracious and sat still and allowed her to pet him.

My belief is that a shepherd should be this way, a dog which can compete at schutzhund and show aggression and fight and yet will be safe and loving with people he knows and particularly with children.

Bodeus competed in AKC obedience and agility while still in the USA. He is not an extreme sport dog but he has achieved Schutzhund III nine times with respectable scores.

In 2007 he qualified for the UK team to go to the World FCI and WUSV Championships. We decided to go to the WUSV only, and I was very proud of Bodeus for achieving a passing score at that level of competition.

Louise Jollyman