I purchased Rafe from Silver Mountain Shepherds in March 2004. I had always owned Dobermans before and did not know that much about shepherds. I was looking for another Doberman but could not find one. I saw Pauls add for his puppies and called him and decided to purchase a puppy from him. We got Rafe our black and silver male puppy at 10 weeks old. He was 24 lbs at 10 weeks. He is the most outstanding dog I have ever owned.I have had many dogs throughout my life from childhood on and I loved them all the equally the same. But Rafe is a very special dog at 12 weeks old he would race off out into the field to catch up with our other dog. Even though he wanted to chase off after her he would stop and turn around at 12 weeks old and look and wait for me. He had a greater concern about being with me then playing with our other dog. At that point I knew I would always own a shepherd he had captured my heart. Paul asked me how his shepherds compared to other ones I had seen and at the time I had not seen that many shepherds or did not pay attention when I did because I had never owned one. I took Rafe to 1 year of obedience school at a large dog training club. In that time I had the opportunity to see a lot of german shepherds. I honestly could answer Paul’s question and tell him that Rafe was the best shepherd I have seen other then one other shepherd which happened to be Rafes 1/2 brother that looked like his twin. All the trainers just loved him. They loved the fact that he did not have the german shepherd slope to his hips like some of the show dogs did. He was the smartest in all of his classes. He always excelled faster then the other dogs and shepherds, because he was always very focused and calm which enabled him to learn faster. He could do sit and down stays longer then any of the other dogs. I also did some work in teaching him to search for people in our woods. I would give him an article of clothing and let him smell it he would get really excited and the I would let him off leash and tell him to search. He always found his person there was not a single time he did not. He would race ahead of me through the woods and disappear into the woods. But within a few minutes he would come back for me to make sure I was heading in the right direction. I did not teach him this he just did it on his own. I did take him to a search and rescue groups dog trials. He was the best behaved and disciplined dog there. He was the only dog in the trial that when asked to search for his owner could do it. He was held by a stranger while I hid then when released. He went to ground scenting then air scenting and found me in a short amount of time. All the other dogs ran away. We did not join the group it was more of a social group and I have a criminal justice background and was looking for more of a group along that line. But it was great to see how well he behaved and he out shined the trainers dogs of that group that were barking and jumping all over everyone. Rafe is not only stunningly beautiful but very much the gentleman. He is my best friend and I told my husband if he was a man I would marry him. I have since decided to get another puppy so Rafe can have someone to play with his nanny, Mia a keply/assusie cross is 12 now and does not like to play as much as he does. We looked at some other shepherds but none of them compared to Paul’s dogs they just did not seem to have all of Rafe’s qualities. So we are now waiting excitedly to get a cousin of Rafe’s. I highly recommend SilverMountain Shepherds we also have a friend that purchased a puppy the same year we did after seeing Rafe and they just love their shepherd also.