Hi all! One of the best things to come out of living in Maryland was adding the final piece to our family puzzle when we adopted Kiraly. Our little German Shepherd was found just outside Baltimore City. We’ve both never owned a German Shepherd and at first, we were hesitant – I had just started my first permanent NPS job, we had closed on a house, and Clinton had just started his job as well. But after asking to play with her and seeing how much she loved us – we were smitten. Little Kiraly joined us that evening and met her big brother, Kyzer, whom she absolutely ADORES.

Owning dogs means an added layer of friendship as well as protection. We saw both of this firsthand while living in Baltimore. To start with, while I would say we lived in a relatively safe area, it was still downtown Baltimore, and we did have plenty of drug dealers and prostitutes walk up and down the street depending on the time of day. We never had an issue and never had our house broken into – we did have a homeless person wander into our rowhouse backyard when the fence was left open – but other than that, we’ve felt safe in our own house. A lot of that I know is because of our dogs. We’ve never trained our dogs to be ‘security’ for the record!

Kiraly was such a character! One of our favorite things that she would do was howl at the firetrucks as they drove by if their sirens were going off. So cute! There were lots of times that we’d hear the sirens, and my favorite memory was walking her in the morning when a truck went by. Normally, she just heard the sounds, but seeing the little sparkle in her eyes as she saw the truck and then heard the sound was so adorable. She never howled for police or ambulance sirens, so seeing a fire truck in person was special! Dogs are able to hear pitches higher than humans so who knows what different sounds she might have heard that we can not!

A piece of advice I leave you with when owning dogs in a large city – do not neglect to walk and exercise your dog and make sure they wear a collar with an updated tag! We’ve have actually had a good Samaritan call us and make sure our dogs were okay when we lost a collar with a tag before – dog owners care and will check up on the pup! If you see a collar with no dog – call the number! Make sure the dog is okay. I’ve even had the person mail the collar back – to which I mail them back some cash. Keep it up, dog owners! We thank you in kind. As the owner of the dog, make sure you update the tag if you move or change phone numbers!

We also made sure to walk our dogs each day even though we had a small backyard in back of our rowhouse. Especially for Kiraly, she was a puppy with lots of energy! Kyzer was three and needed to smell and know where he was in the world. We walked every morning down to Patterson Park for them to run and play, and we frequently went to the dog park. While Kiraly usually did not like the dog park (we opted to split up and walk her around separately), Kyzer loves socializing. Understand your dog’s personality will help you bond with them as well as keep them socialized and comfortable. Kiraly did go into the dog park but only until she started basically wanting to be in my lap. Kyzer usually would spend his entire time in the park, but we wanted to make sure they got a decent walk in. This give and take allows us the opportunity to keep the dogs in shape while keeping them as park of the neighborhood. Kiraly and Kyzer were able to figure out how to be around dogs and humans during their puppy years and this helped immensely with all the times we’ve moved them across the country in future years.

Kiraly was our precious little apply strudel, and we miss her every day.