Shadow – 1 year old male Schipperke

Shadow – 1 year old male Schipperke

This is Shadow who is a 1-year old Schipperke. Shadow has been unfortunate so far in his short life. Since being sold as a puppy he has found himself on the move four times and had a name change three times (from Loki to Archie to Shadow). We are very keen that his fifth move will be his last so we are looking for a dedicated person to commit to him for the rest of his life.

His history has been left a bit sketchy to me. I know that at one stage a behaviorist told his owners he was best put to sleep. When he was accepted into rescue, I was expecting a dog who needed serious rehabilitation, but what turned up was a small dog who is suspicious of strangers, yet allows space between them and him if he feels uncomfortable.

Shadow loves his walks. He pulls on the lead which can easily be worked on, but off lead he has fantastic recall with no interest in chasing prey animals. He meets other dogs with lovely manners and lives well with other dogs here in rescue. He is not food aggressive, toy possessive and does not show dominance towards either people or other dogs.


As already said, he is shy of strangers, but not confrontational with them. He will take a wide berth round them if he can and depends on his handler to guide him out of the situation. Unfortunately people can be very full on with small dogs and Shadow has had a history of nipping someone (he did not break the skin and left just a tiny bruise but this was the reason that it was recommended that he was put to sleep by the behaviorist). Having lived and worked closely with this dog, I can only imagine that nipping someone was his last resort. It is possible that he was on lead and the person continued to approach Shadow ignoring all warning signs. He would have had to be cornered to nip someone. His previous owners were very inexperienced handlers and would not have read him as many could easily have done.

Due to his history of nipping we will be looking for an adult only home for Shadow. Shadow’s bad points – he is not house trained yet. This is partly down to people owning him who had little experience with dog ownership and partly down to being unsettled due to so many moves in a short time. Shadow is looking for an owner who has lots of patience to teach him where he needs to go. He will need a garden to run around and play in with no holes or gaps in or under the fencing. Fencing will need to be at least 5 foot high all the way round.

He has lived with cats and although he shows an interest, he is not aggressive, but very playful with them. Understandably Shadow has got a degree of separation anxiety. This I did expect with the amount of homes he has had – bonding with a person, losing that person, bonding again, losing again. He will have to go through this again when he leaves rescue for him to progress into his forever home. This is unavoidable, so the new owner will need to be at home for the majority of the day initially to help him settle.

Shadow would happily with another/other dogs and he is happy with both males and females. Any new friend for him would need to be neutered either way. Shadow has been fully vaccinated, castrated, microchipped and his worm and flea treatment has been bought up to date. A homecheck will be carried out and minimum adoption fee of £150 applies.

20Oct2012 | Furry Friends Animal Rescue Surrey

A new breed to be seeing in rescue,.

Oh, that poor poor boy, my puppy has got problems but I wouldn't dream of having him pts, he'll get all the help he needs. Thank goodness Shadow went to you and I really hope he gets his forever home very soon, he's a lovely looking dog x

I wonder how many of these are even bred a year in the uk ...

thats a first for me. never seen one in rescue. poor thing .

KC registrations:
2008 = 62
2009 = 51
2010 = 49
2011 = 31

Peak years (since 1995):
1996 = 155
2000 = 146

Trough years (since 1995):
2007 = 23
2011 = 31

Do the breed club know about this guy? It sounds like he needs a Schip experienced home, and the breed rescue would probably be his best hope.

would it be hard to find his breeder?

Poor wee thing

Is this chap still in rescue? I can't find him on their website.

Me either,he is still on dogsblog though.