Best Dog Breed for Mountain Living- German Shepherd?! Happy Birthday Viggo!!
hey guys it’s amy and vigo here from Colorado mountain living and we are celebrating this guy this past week Viggo turned five years old it was his birthday and he’s a big boy now obviously he’s been big for a while but we’re definitely celebrating having him in our life for the last five years so it got me thinking is the German Shepherd breed the optimal breed for mountain lifestyle I was thinking that since we moved from North Carolina he’s been much happier and more suited to this climate but I have three main reasons why I want to go over why I think the German Shepherd breed is ideally suited to mountain life and I also want to share with you a little slideshow at the end some photos and videos of Viggo as a puppy I know half you guys like watching their channel just because of ego so I’m happy to share some really adorable footage of him as a little puppy [Music] so one of the reasons why I think the German Shepherd breed is ideally suited for mountain life is because of the climate it is never hot here I mean it’s hot in the Sun but it’s never like humid 90 degrees in fact I’ve never even seen the thermometer go above 75 but it’s the the climate is so temperate that he can be outside literally all day long and in fact in the wintertime if even if I’m inside he prefers to stay outside and he prefers to stay on the snow pile look he that’s his Island of of a sofa he just even if all the snow has melted around us he will find the one snow pile and lie down on it he just really prefers to be cool and it’s probably because he’s got that really thick undercoat and you know years of evolution this type of dog breed is really suited for cooler temperatures so I think you know he’s definitely happier in the cooler weather when we lived in North Carolina he couldn’t even be outside for more than an hour at a time in fact in the summer time he could be outside for 30 minutes and he’d be dying to come inside and then he’d come and lie on the AC vent on the floor because he was so uncomfortable so he just hated hot humid weather he was always kind of lethargic he wasn’t able to really run around much he’d be just like gulping down water and now it’s like he can run free and he’s super content to just be outside all the time and I think that’s a boost to you know lifestyle health is that being outside a lot is very healthy just the natural environment and everything that goes along with that you know so that’s probably like the number one and you know it’s good that we’ve got a dog that enjoys snow and you know he’s a giant dog he’s a hundred pounds I mean I only went out weigh in by about ten pounds so he’s you know the cold doesn’t affect him as much and a lot of folks were worried in the blizzard video but he wanted to stay outside he’d come in whenever he wants and he prefers to stay outside just loves it and he loves playing in the snow he loves hiking in the snow he anything to stay outside that’s his that’s his game he likes you know all the natural environment he loves the trails he loves water so he’s definitely number two he’s just a great companion another reason why he’s a great dog for you know mountain lifestyle is he’s a companion for me but he’s also you know he can keep up you know he’s the kind of heat a large breed dog he can keep up with all the hiking I like to do and being outside snowshoeing skiing being alongside with me alongside of us when were on the tractor whatever we’re working outside he likes to be with us and so it’s nice to have a dog breed that matches your lifestyle and I think he’s definitely a good match because he keeps up with us he doesn’t get tired as easily as maybe smaller breed dogs do but he’s definitely well-suited for an outdoor lifestyle I’ll say and then number three probably the thing that everyone thinks of when they think of a German Shepherd is that he’s an excellent guard dog he notices things that are so far away he can be looking out the window and seeing down the road you know like a quarter-mile and see any kind of movement like a truck or a person or something walking and he’s barking at it so he’s alerting us to everything that’s happening around us all the time it’s like having a live-action security camera accept it with an alarm because he is on top of everything all the time he works crazy for any wildlife so sometimes he scares off the wildlife which is good last spring a bear came out of hibernation was walking right along the trail and he but you know chased it off it was already on its way so I don’t think it was hanging around but he chased that you didn’t hit him chase after the bear he just chased it up to the property line and the bear ran off he’s chased off coyotes he’s chased off foxes he’s chased off moose sometimes the moose don’t care and we had to be careful because the moves that don’t care are more apt to attack him so we do have them have that fine line of what’s appropriate for scaring off moose calling them back to the house when he’s in danger who knows he could have scared off a bunch of other things we don’t even know about he definitely alerts us to anybody walking nearby so we do have a jeep Road that’s just a you know 50 to 100 feet off our property line not even and people hike through here they ride dirt bikes through here they ride their trucks their art you know their jeeps through here and he lets us know every time someone’s walking by so we always know when there’s somebody around and then there’s like delivery folks and they’re like subcontractors and folks that are coming up to the house I mean people could turn around at the bottom of our driveway and he’s telling us you know somebody’s here somebody’s not supposed to be here at least that’s what he thinks so any activity that’s going on in the whole neighborhood he can tell us when the dogs are outside at the neighbor’s house and when someone is doing outdoor chores across the street he’s very alert and that makes us feel good you know we’re very appreciative to his alertness even though sometimes it gets really annoying when he barks all the time sometimes he just preemptively barks runs outside at night and barks to scare away anything that might be there before you know he’s doing his rounds at the end of the night so anyway those are kind of my three big reasons why I feel like he’s super a super breed for this Colorado mountain lifestyle not just the climate but the security of being a guard dog and just the companionship of having somebody because they ain’t gonna get it can get kind of lonely out here you know if Brian’s working all week and I’m at the house and you know what do I got to do I could to hang out with him and we could do projects together and he’s there by my side sometimes he just wants to lie outside though but if I’m outside doing stuff even with the bees he’s you know hanging around even though he’s not really a great guard dog for bees because he likes to eat them so that’s not really cool had we decided we wanted to raise livestock there could be another use for him but I think we’re not going the livestock grew up here I think that’s good little bit too much work nothing that I really want to get into so I think bees is it but well I just wanted to share with you guys a little milestone for vigo turning five us big deal and I think I’d like to show you some of our favor clips from the first five years of his life just some adorable thing to think you’ll enjoy and hope help me wish Vigo Happy Birthday five years old and if you have any great stories of your German Shepherd I’d love to hear him on the comments or if you have another breed suggestion that’s a great breed for mountains we might think about getting another dog in the future we don’t know we were thinking about husky but I’m not sure I know they howl a lot so difficult isn’t seem to get along with other dogs too well he likes to be the head honcho so I don’t know we had to think about that move but I know there’s a lot of large breed dogs that love the outdoors but I’d love to hear you guys thoughts and thanks for tuning in just a quick little happy birthday Vigo video and also we’ve got more work coming on the house we’ve been working hard this week working prepping the floor and the staircase area so that’s our next to-do list hopefully we’re getting the floor done this weekend we’ll keep you up to date and we’ll see you at the next video thanks guys for joining in and take care [Music] [Music] oh wow [Music] [Music]
