Ron reminded me of a young German Shepherd I got from a small town shelter and a true story.
We were very newly married and moved into a big house with a big fenced yard in Windsor, CT. I'd been wanting a dog and found this stunningly beautiful female shepherd at the local shelter. We wondered why such a gorgeous dog was there, but Doris was on board, I did the paperwork on a Friday, and became her proud new owner. My German bride grew up in a city apartment and so had no idea what having a dog was like. The pooch was REALLY high energy and always panting, so we named her Tizzie. There should be at least two red caution flags up already, maybe three.
:-\
Tiz was house-broken, seemed to love the place (we always had the doors open to the yard), and bonded instantly to me, never ever - ever - leaving my side. Saturday afternoon the dog insisted on sitting between the bride and me at lunch. Even more so at dinner, giving Doris head-low distrustful looks and shying back. There was some pretty strong ownership going on and the wife clearly didn't understand the pack and alpha dog mentality. The other thing is that my then bride was also high strung, constantly jumping at the smallest thing, and now we had this dog which was even more high strung. We never thought about that in getting the dog out of the shelter. Having had a shepherd before, Tizzie struck me as a poor at learning some basics, but I could overlook that, right?
Between the personality issues and the constant high energy by late Sunday morning, Doris was feeling overwhelmed and wanted to talk, so with the constant panting and getting between the two of us, we had to go into the bedroom and close the door to get a little privacy. The wife was crying and I was trying to be a good new husband and listen, and - it's awful quiet because the dog had stopped whining outside the bedroom door a while ago. Wonder why???
Coming out of the bedroom after probably 15-20 minutes, we heard Tizzie doing something upstairs and went to look. On the way, she'd crapped several times in the living room even though the doors to the yard were open. We're talking serious communication here! Doris beat me upstairs and screamed when it turned out that Tizzie had gone into a closet, pulled down her bridal veil (of all things), and absolutely shredded it. I'd heard about maladjusted puppy mill dogs and it dawned on me that Tizzie was probably one of them. Emotions were running REALLY high and I think Doris physically got between me and the gun case.
???
I dragged Tizzie to the truck and tried to take her back to the pound, but it was Sunday in a small town and the place was locked tight. Damn, now what, because she SURE wasn't going home with me. I stopped at the police station and clearly my story was the highlight of the morning for the bored guy on duty, so after listening he said that he would've shot the dog on the spot. We tied her in a corner with my brand new leash, so he could put her in the pound when he was getting off shift.
I still love dogs but Ron, maybe it's not just you.