# Nara SENIOR Devi turned 8 today. Pics in her hot pink Julius K9 harness w/ KAZE too!



## counter (Feb 20, 2009)

I think it's official: Nara Simha Devi is now Nara SENIOR Devi. Nov 22nd is her birthday, so today she turned 8. King Kaze will turn 4 on Dec 5th, and Paw Paw (our Siberian; not pictured) will turn 8 on Dec 4th. Anyways, I've been saying that I would get pics of Queen Nara in her new Julius K9 IDC Powerharness, so here she is in all of her glory:



















Not something a distant coyote wants to see up on the hill staring down (Kaze's coyote radar is in targeting mode):



















I love that you can see his bold name on his collar tag, so with the harness, it reads KING KAZE on the pic below. I didn't even notice it until I uploaded the pics. The wind and luck were on my side for that one. Usually the tag is backwards or in the shade so not visible. Ha!




























Nara tracking quail, also known as "herd of birds" to us. They are usually in groups of 10-30 and they opt to run along the ground instead of fly away when the dogs are roaming after them, at least until the very last resort. They look like a herd of sheep or cattle when they run around. So cute.


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## T-Bone'sMamma (Mar 3, 2012)

I would not have pegged her as 8 years old, looks like she has really minimal greying and nice solid body! Pretty girl  Happy birthday pup pup! :birthday:

Both great looking dogs, great harnesses and great pics!


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## dogma13 (Mar 8, 2014)

Long live the Queen!Love the harnesses!


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## counter (Feb 20, 2009)

T-Bone'sMamma said:


> I would not have pegged her as 8 years old, looks like she has really minimal greying and nice solid body! Pretty girl  Happy birthday pup pup! :birthday:
> 
> Both great looking dogs, great harnesses and great pics!


 Funny you mention it, but we just noticed today that the whiskers coming out from above Nara's eyes have turned white/gray. She has some gray around her mouth, but you can't really see that in these photos. Overall though, I think she is holding up fine! It's either her genetics or maybe her raw diet and other life factors. She's WGSL out of Ursus von Batu lines, who I guess was the #1 GSD in the world (World Sieger) in the year 2000. He's her Great Grandfather. I'm sure having that bloodline in the mix helps a little.


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## lorihd (Nov 30, 2011)

beautiful dogs, queen nara looks devine


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## counter (Feb 20, 2009)

dogma13 said:


> Long live the Queen!Love the harnesses!





[email protected] said:


> beautiful dogs, queen nara looks devine


Thanks guys!

Nara looks a little pudgy in these pics, but we're working on it. She was up to 90 lbs and is now down to 77 lbs (at last vet check), and she looks even thinner now. I'm starting to see her waist again when looking down from above. I was one of those "bigger is better" dog owners when I first got her, and I was in denial about her size thinking her fat was solid muscle from the excessive amounts of exercise she was getting. The nice forum members here helped me to see the light, although it wasn't easy to swallow that pill.

But yeah, I call Nara my "BIG GIRL" for many reasons. I love her so much. I was just talking to her tonight (yes, I actually talk out loud as if she was a person!...oh come on, I know I'm not the only one who does it!!) and reminiscing about how, once a long time ago, she was our only dog. It was just her and me (and my wife and oldest daughter and later our youngest daughter). She spent the entire day alone with me today for her birthday [minus the outdoor photo shoot with Kaze while gathering fire wood], just like back in the good ol' days.

She is my Queen, indeed! Nara was my first dog ever in my life, and I was 32 when I got her. Starting late in life, I know. I look deep into her eyes and constantly tell her that she better never leave me. I've also told my supervisors at work that, when she does go, they can expect me to take days/week/s off work to mourn. This won't be easy for me, I can guarantee myself that.

Thanks again.


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## kelbonc (Aug 25, 2014)

:birthday:


*Happy 8th Birthday* Queen Nara!!


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## Gretchen (Jan 20, 2011)

Fantastic! Beautiful photos and love the "queen" and "king" on the harnesses. They both look so proud.


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## Shepherd Mom (Aug 30, 2010)

Nara is beautiful and certainly cashing in on the good bloodline. Our oldest boy is 8 also and never want to think about that day, he will be here forever, he hs to be ( : My husband does the same thing with ours, will take him out just the two of him like the old days before his little brother showed up. You can just see the smile and happiness all over his body.

Kaze is a very handsome boy, strong and in charge look ( : You are very lucky.


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## shado (Nov 23, 2015)

amazing! He looks alerted all the time


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## counter (Feb 20, 2009)

Gretchen said:


> Fantastic! Beautiful photos and love the "queen" and "king" on the harnesses. They both look so proud.


Thank you! Julius K9 has hundreds of words/phrases for their Velcro patches, so I had to sort through them all before deciding on KING and QUEEN. I've been calling Nara my Queen for years, and King Kaze is sort of a play on King Kong, since he is so big and strong. Nara's name was originally picked out for a male GSD, as it's Sanskrit from ancient India, and is the name of the Lord of Protection who is half-man and half-lion: Narasimhadeva.










When I found a local litter, there were only 3 females left (it was 6 girls and 3 boys total). I had been searching for GSD pups for half a year to a year in Virginia, and there were none available. This was a surprise litter, as the breeders lived in FL and the entire litter was already sold, but the breeders had to do an emergency move to VA Beach to take care of a relative. When they moved, some of the people who had put money down on the pups had backed out for whatever reason. That made some of the dogs available, so we lucked out and got Nara. I had a basic knowledge of Sanskrit, so I changed the masculine Deva to feminine Devi, thus Nara Simha Devi, our "lord of protection" dog, was born! And as you can tell from the pic above, Narasimhadeva wears a crown like a King, so Nara followed suit and became my Queen.

KING and QUEEN Velcro made the most sense, as I didn't really like the other options, and the custom patches (where you can make the dog's name or whatever word/phrase) are not reflective. When I go camping, the dogs are in these harnesses at all times, so there was a necessity for extra reflective options. There are bear bells attached to each side of the harness, and I attach red flashing lights to the back/top to ensure visibility and awareness to all wildlife who might pounce if startled. There's no way to NOT hear/see my dogs coming from a distance. Ha!

Now I'm just waiting for someone to ask if Kaze is a King Shepherd, but I don't think many people know too much about them yet, other than us GSD lovers.


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## Daisy&Lucky's Mom (Apr 24, 2011)

Happy 8th Birthday Nara . Love your harness. Looks like you and your canine brothers had a great day.


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## RZZNSTR (Jan 24, 2015)

Very cool! Well done!


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## Debanneball (Aug 28, 2014)

Counter, your dogs are georgeous! Happy Birthday Queen Nara! Many more! Your photo's are always amazing!


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## counter (Feb 20, 2009)

Shepherd Mom said:


> Nara is beautiful and certainly cashing in on the good bloodline. Our oldest boy is 8 also and never want to think about that day, he will be here forever, he hs to be ( : My husband does the same thing with ours, will take him out just the two of him like the old days before his little brother showed up. You can just see the smile and happiness all over his body.


Yeah, I will admit that she's my beautiful gal! It's funny that I'll get stopped and people will comment on her saying anything from:

"WOW! Now that's what a German Shepherd is _supposed_ to look like!"

...to...

"I just have to tell you that it's nice to see a German Shepherd that is not sloped back like what they're breeding now."

...to...

"What's she mixed with?"

...or...

"She's too small to be a real German Shepherd."


If they only knew. If they only knew. 



:headbang:

:thinking:

:rolleyes2:

:hammer:

I think I'll probably lay in bed in the fetal position and cry for days. I don't know. I can't think about it. I will certainly take time off work to recuperate. My dogs are almost held in the same regard as my children. I swore to them when I bought/adopted/rescued them that I would take care of them with Love until the day they die, or I die, whichever might come first.



Shepherd Mom said:


> Kaze is a very handsome boy, strong and in charge look ( : You are very lucky.





shado said:


> amazing! He looks alerted all the time


As much as I love all of my dogs, I believe Kaze knows the way to my heart, and will one day be known, or reflected back upon, as My Heart Dog. I think he is the dog I've always wanted. Initially I wanted a male, and a BIG MALE. He is both. He has his OCD issues thanks to previous ownership, but we're working through that. He might never overcome it, but he has improved greatly. He's the only dog that will approach me, bury his entire head into my body or between my legs, begging me to rub and love him, and then he'll stand there until I'm done, no matter how long it takes (that's saying something for a dog with OCD!). It's the most loving exchange any dog has ever given me, and he does it multiple times a day. I know his brain hurts. His OCD is torturing him and I see it. He's 10 times better than a year ago. I hope I can help him heal and find peace. He is my Old Yeller. My Rin Tin Tin. My Lassie. All in one! I'm 100% serious.

If you don't remember the story: I used to pet sit him for a co-worker. I wasn't impressed at first. He didn't have good color/markings. He was/is a spaz. He couldn't sit still for more than 5 seconds. He paces and walks/runs back and forth no matter where he is. His owner had him chasing laser pointers and would laugh and show him off, thinking it was so funny to watch such "entertainment." Kaze would stand in one place endlessly scratching with both front paws at the linoleum tiles trying dig until he could capture the red dot, which of course never happens. Trickery. Torture.

Anyways, one late night (I got off work at 11pm) pet sitting, after I spent hours cleaning up Kaze's diarrhea (from being fed the cheapest of cheap kibble) that he flicked all over the walls from his super-long happy tail that touches the ground, instead of coming home to my family, I passed out on their living room floor. When I woke up a few hours later in the middle of the night, I found Kaze sleeping up against me, with his head on my chest using me as his pillow. That's when I fell in love, and realized that there's a chance I could remove him from this crazy situation. Kaze was communicating to me that he was in pain. His brain was hurting and he knew I could help release the pressure and relieve the strain. It was known at work that his owner didn't want the dog, didn't want to take the time to exercise or train him, and didn't want to take the time to learn anything about dogs. I made my offer, and after some weeks/months back and forth, the owner convinced his wife to sell Kaze to me, knowing that he would be better off and well taken care of in my pack/home.

I've written a lot about him on this forum; how he can't complete thought processes. He'll start to drink water, and if I even move an inch, he'll stop and run to keep at my side to see where I'm going. So now, if he is drinking, I will stop in place and wait for him to complete the thought. Then we'll move together. Hours upon hours of trying to figure out the root of his pain and to work through it to rehabilitate his brain. If he was at 25 out of 100 of how a GSD is supposed to be/act, he's probably up around 75 now, hopefully on his way to 85-95. I don't think he'll ever come close to acting like a "normal" GSD (like my Nara, who is unphased by just about anything and everything). He's too damaged to expect that. It's amazing to see the early and long term negative impact on a dog from abuse and/or neglect, and then the long road to recovery in the proper loving hands of a caring owner. Kaze gets scared by certain sounds or sudden movements. If I touch him to pet him and he doesn't see my hand approaching, he'll flinch and tremble, even now, 1.5 years of me owning him. I'm thinking he must've been physically abused on top of everything else in his previous home. I have to remember to let him see my hand in front of his face as it nears his body just to lay my hands on him to love him.

So yeah, I appreciate your comments of how strong, in charge, and alert he looks. He is still a GSD. He is still amazing despite his many (not his fault) flaws. He is not a complete GSD. I'm sure most GSDs are strong, in charge, and alert...and complete. Kaze, despite his flaws, has brought me love in exchange for helping him work through his challenges. I accept that challenge! I think sometimes that the dogs requiring the most investment of time, work and extra love, are more easily to become attached to than a No-Assembly-Required dog. It's like eating fast food or a TV dinner versus making a feast from scratch. I'd get more satisfaction from, and enjoyment eating, the feast! King Kaze is my Feast. I feast upon this experience he has forced into my life. 

My heart dog!:gsdhead::gsdsit::gsdbeggin::halogsd:


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## Traveler's Mom (Sep 24, 2012)

Your dogs are as beautiful as the pictures you take. Happy Birthday to your all your pack. 

You write about your fear of losing your king and queen. I can so appreciate your feelings. My boy just turned 9. I look at him and feel fear rising. I try not to think about it but it is always there, just under the surface. I try to enjoy every moment with him. I only wish I could put away those fears so I can truly be free and happy with him by my side for as long as we have together. 

Always that little cloud hovering.

Lynn & Traveler


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## counter (Feb 20, 2009)

Debanneball said:


> Counter, your dogs are georgeous! Happy Birthday Queen Nara! Many more! Your photo's are always amazing!





Traveler's Mom said:


> Your dogs are as beautiful as the pictures you take. Happy Birthday to your all your pack.
> 
> You write about your fear of losing your king and queen. I can so appreciate your feelings. My boy just turned 9. I look at him and feel fear rising. I try not to think about it but it is always there, just under the surface. I try to enjoy every moment with him. I only wish I could put away those fears so I can truly be free and happy with him by my side for as long as we have together.
> 
> ...


Thanks! I'm just grateful to have a working camera again. My old camera, that we're handing down to our 10-yr old daughter, suddenly stopped being able to upload the pics from the camera to the computer. We'll get that fixed for her. But now I have my wife's old camera and it takes better pics than before. My wife is really one notch down from a professional photographer. She's taken classes on it in college and it's one of her passions and hobbies, along with knitting and crafting and doing our family blog, so she uses her pics to chronicle it all. She takes all of her pics in manual settings, and she's been bugging me to learn so I can stop using automatic. One day I will tackle it. I will admit that I'm intimidated (and maybe lazy!?) at this point. But her pics of the dogs and kiddos look 10 times better than my pics. At least my new camera, even on automatic settings, is an upgrade that improves the quality of my pics compared to before. I hope to take many more pics. 

I'm trying to figure out how to take pics of them while bikejoring/dog scootering, in motion. I know the camera has an automatic "action" setting my wife showed me. I just have to be able to balance myself, hold the handle bars with one hand with fingers on the brake just in case, and be able to steady the camera enough to take pics while the dogs are dragging me down the trail. I also would need daylight, as I've been running them at 4am to avoid cars and people. We're the only ones awake on base, other than the police who patrol. Ha!


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