There is no more Bauernhoffen.
A short while after sundown, on the 24th of September 2003, Henri Bauer died and quietly closed the door on one of the last American kennels to breed the German Shepherd Dog as it should be.
They say there are no good American German Shepherd Dogs, that breeders who show in AKC events have ruined this finest of breeds and if you want a good dog you have to get one from a kennel that imports dogs from Germany or Czechoslovakia, one whose dogs are, at most, a generation or two away from their European forebears. That may be true today, now that Henri's gone. It wasn't true yesterday.
Yesterday, a small, 80-something live-wire of a woman in jeans and a T-shirt would peer down the driveway to see who was causing the dogs to make all that ruckus, and seeing you let yourself in at the metal farm gate, would call out a welcome in her high, light voice. "Well, where have you been?" she'd say, laying aside the ever-present scoop or the water hose, and then, as if what really mattered was that you were there, "Do you remember that litter Delilah had? Come see them!" And soon you would find yourself up to your elbows in a tumble of dark, big-boned pups eager to meet this new and interesting person.
Those pups would grow up to be the dogs that drew me back to Henri and to Bauernhoffen: dark and richly colored for the most part, with strong, flat toplines, sturdy hips and calm, confident eyes; dogs who walked up on their toes, not down on their hocks, their ears erect without any need to make them so, ready to repel invaders or to accept you if you were acceptable to Henri.
Near them, watching over them like the lord of the kennel, Aaron would put his huge paws up on the fence bar and silently wait for the tribute of a good rub and a scratch, while out in back, the old dogs living in retirement would enquire now and again who had come to visit. In the kitchen, the old bitches waited to mob you once they had gotten a good sniff and, if you were lucky, there would be a brand new litter in the whelping room, little black bears with eyes still sealed shut, shakily exploring the parameters of their small, enclosed world. And out in the runs along the drive, the adults would be settling down from the excitement of another visitor with (a source of even more excitement) the strange black male that had come along, too, now safely ensconced in a fenced area under the trees where they could watch him and mutter among themselves what they would do to him if they could just get at him, grandson of Henri's Adam or not.
It was Henri's world, a good world, where the dogs harked back to a time before Lance of Fran Jo, whose effect on the American GSD was disastrous, and the emphasis was on health and longevity, conformation, and temperament. The order can be rearranged any way at all since they are all of equal importance, though temperament may have a slight edge since that governs the dog's relationship with us. But it never made much difference at Bauernhoffen because there was seldom a dog there who watched you with hesitant eyes; I remember only one in the ten years that I knew Henri Bauer.
She cared, that was the thing. She cared first about her dogs, about breeding the best, and then about the people who took her dogs away with them. Nothing gave her more pleasure than the calls and letters bragging on "the best dog I've ever owned" and few things raised her temper like hearing that one of her dogs was mistreated. If there was any way she could manage it, that dog came home. When my Thunder died of that cruelest of diseases, ehrlichiosis, a disease carried by ticks or, in his case, by aquatic insects which the dog ingests, Henri tried her damndest to give me another puppy, any puppy I wanted, to make up in some measure for my losing him. It was just the way she was.
I should have taken one. I should have taken him. Because now there'll be no more and when the time comes, I'll have to find another Henri.
Henri knew what she was striving for but she wasn't above asking for advice. Being her, she went straight to the best source there is, Dr. Malcolm Willis, the undisputed authority on the genetics of the German Shepherd Dog, and their correspondence led to even finer dogs bearing the Bauernhoffen kennel name. They have been guard dogs, herding dogs, police dogs, tracking dogs and guide dogs. But for many of us, they have also been the best thing of all: companions.
It has been said that the best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his owner, though who owns and who is owned may be questionable after a time. Over the years, there have been many good dogs carrying the Bauernhoffen name who were given that final, best resting place. So, since Henri had no use for services or memorials, maybe the one place she belongs now is in the hearts of her friends, those who have had that once-in-a-lifetime dog come to them from her heart and hands.
