Long-coated German Shepherd · Volume One, page 17
Hermi, the German Shepherd they call Mr Big Barks
Some portraits need a long caption. Hermi's needs four words: ball firmly in mouth.
The story behind the ball is a long one, though, and Hermi tells it himself, on page 17 of German Shepherds of Australia, Volume One, under the name "Mr Big Barks".
A long wait
It starts badly:
My journey began at just 8 weeks old when my parents, siblings, and I were taken from a breeder.
While the case went through the courts, Hermi went into long-term foster care. "It was a tough time," he says, "not knowing where I'd end up." Then came the part that gave him his name:
After 18 months, I was adopted, but sadly, my new family didn't like my big barks, so I was returned to foster care.
The day everything changed
Then Leanne and Rob came to visit. "I knew right away they were my humans," Hermi says. They played ball at the park. A few days later he visited their house with his foster parents and found pictures of other German Shepherds and toys everywhere, and by the end of the afternoon he had made himself comfortable on their bed.
He knew what that meant. So did they.
Mr Big Barks, at home
A year on, Hermi still sleeps on the bed every night. He spends most days "by Dad's side while he works, never letting him out of sight", and his favourite thing is the daily car ride to the park, where he proudly carries his ball and makes people smile. Which is the moment in the portrait above: ears up, ball clamped, eyes on whoever is most likely to throw it next.
His page ends simply:
From the moment we met, I knew I was finally home.
Why a German Shepherd holds on to the ball
German Shepherds were bred to work all day alongside people. Take away the sheep and the job does not disappear; it moves to whatever is at hand. For a great many shepherds, that job is the ball. It gets carried, guarded, dropped at your feet, picked up again before you can reach it, and carried some more.
The long coat
Look at the fur around Hermi's neck and chest. That longer, softer coat is the long-coated German Shepherd, a variety recognised in Australia alongside the more familiar stock coat. In the warm light of the portrait it reads almost gold.
In the book
Hermi is one of more than 200 German Shepherds in German Shepherds of Australia, Volume One, each with a portrait and a few lines from the family who knows them best. Among them are Putney, the Black Velvet, and Lyla, a princess in gumboots.
The book has raised over $22,000 for German Shepherd Rescue Victoria.