Astor von St. Georg (Collie male, 1990 - 2001)

A dog has long been the desire of my children and I had become as a child, also great with dogs. But for me was just a big dog in question, and before that my wife had too much respect. That changed when our circle of friends extended around a pair that possessed a Beautiful Collie bitch named Lady and they wanted get it fertilized once. They searched buyers for their future puppy quickly and my wife was on fire. Unfortunately, the bitch get ill and couldn't get puppies. But we walked in mind already with Lassie by the Schmölderpark, so we searched the newspaper for relevant ads and were successful. In Amern a Hobby-breeder had two puppies from the first litter of his breeding pair and sold one of them. The second he kept.

Astor was already housebroken when it became the center of our family. It developed into a picturesque and quite dominant male, that possessed obstinacy also a good deal. In the week before its Begleithunde examination it drove me to despair but on the day of examination it was the favorite dog in the world to be and cut off as valedictorian. At Astor the Begleithunde examination was important because it could be dominant over other males and had a strong hunting instinct and by then it was helpful that a loud "place" made it in 50m distance itself fall in the middle of running like a wet sack to leave. And it was nice that you could put it in Rheydt before Karstadt (at that time there was no dog regulations yet), half an hour after the CD could rummage's and was sure that Astor afterwards was exactly where you had dropped it. The breeder who was a member in IRJGV was sake we took Astor also participate in several exhibitions and it also won some trophies, but the hustle and bustle meant stress for dog and family, so we refrained. For a while, I also worked as a dog trainer in the team of the breeder, with Astor me was on hand to help.

 Since my son at the time, as Astor joined us, played in the D-youth football and I coached the team, it was inevitable that Astor accompanied us every now and then. This love developed at Astor to soccer balls and it was the best training partner of my son. When René then became older and stronger and hit the ball so cleverly shielded that Astor did not come to the ball, it was found that the dog had learned the fouling and the ball conquered by pressing from behind against René's knees and it so did stumble. The love for games was also responsible for ensuring that Astor was a water rat. When it was young, we went with a group, the time to prepare met on the Begleithunde examination every week in Hardter forest to a nearby lake for swimming. All dogs accompanied their masters into the water, only the water-shy Collies that ran excitedly back and forth on the shore. Then my son took a ball into the water - that was too much for Astor. It overcame its fear and it came to us. As it tried to cling to me, I was later scratched right, but Astor felt since that day in the water well what many photos and videos testify.

Collies are, inter alia, Descendants of greyhounds, therefore good runners, so it was no problem for Astor to accompany me every morning during my runs - mostly 6km, but every now and then sometimes even 10km or 12km. And if it sometimes did not feel like it just took a shortcut and waited at the bakery by feeding on an delicious bun on me.

Astor had a heart condition, but which we learned only half a year before its death, despite the regular vet visits. Friday it had accompanied me with no visible problems while running, Saturdays it would not boot. We initially typed on hip problems in the clinic but the vets diagnosed heart failure and water in its lungs. With medication adjusted correctly, we spent a good half a year with it. On a hot summer day we had to euthanize it because it would otherwise dies of suffocation.