@Justilou1
"He was a huge, big-boned dog who had a massive distrust of people until I came home from hospital. He was the only one who spotted my mother’s PND and mania and assigned himself the role of my guardian. (In 1972 PND didn’t exist, but he knew!) This giant dog kept me entertained and stood between me and my mum when she was at her worst. Because I’d been a premmie, and largely neglected, when I wasn’t walking at 3, people assumed that I had brain damage. Not that dog. He pushed me into walking and I pulled myself up on his lips and ears and tail - whatever I could grab, and that big softie kept insisting I could do it."
My parents GSDs (or Alsations as they were still known back then) were 1 (bitch) and 6 (dog) years old when I was born. The dog was used as my soldier father's security dog and was actually even bigger than their 70kg one is, now. Everyone around the unit knew him as "the gentle giant" - until he was sent after someone by my father. He was also bred from a show line (straight backs) by the woman who was my grandmother's midwife (as in, she helped to deliver my mother and her brother), and who later employed my then 13 year old mother as one of their kennel girls. The bitch, on the other hand, was rescued as an underweight, abused pup from someone my parents describe as "a known terrorist" in NI (my father was livid when my mother admitted where the tiny pup had come from!) at the height of "the troubles". She loathed soldiers and would routinely pin my father with hackles up if he came home in uniform (once back in England) until he spoke. But the moment I was brought home from hospital? Despite the midwives all trying to insist they be got rid of before i was born as they were "dangerous" and would "savage" me to death... they effectively became mine. And yep; both recognised something in my mother post-birth that wasn't officially recognised/then documented - and both routinely got between me and her when she was on a rampage against me for... I don't know, being a kid. I'd flee beneath the dining table and the bitch, in particular (who taught me how to walk by letting me grab hold of her collar and her fur and slowly pacing as I staggered alongside her) would stand between me and my mother, her "owner" - who didn't dare to try and get past her because, as she's since admitted, she knew the bitch would go for her. It's been 35 years since the bitch died - actually fighting off an intruder to our home, whilst dying from cancer, in an effort to protect me from his raping me (he and his accomplice beat her up so badly that she died 2 weeks later) - and not a day goes by when I don't think of them both. In those 35 years, I've had a GSD of my own and two GSD crosses (his unexpected pups with my lab/whippet bitch). I was 12 when my GSD came into my life, so about 18 months after losing the bitch who parented me more effectively than my mother, and he went everywhere but school with me. He didn't even need a lead, he'd stick so closely to my side.
I am experienced with GSDs, but I'll tell you this - I'd never have one with children of my own, or grandchildren on the horizon. Because I recognise precisely how lucky we were to have been blessed with 4 good dogs.
My daughter, who wasn't raised with GSDs in her life, other than her grandparents one since she turned 20 and whom she sees maybe once every few months for an hour or so, is planning on moving in with her (equally dog clueless) boyfriend and starting a family of her own. They want a GSD. It'll be an unmitigated disaster. Both work outside of the home, neither understand the breed (well, dogs in general actually - even the boyfriend's mother is worried!) and there will be a bored, unsocialised GSD - a breed which I think we can all agree are prone to stress disorders if not properly occupied - with at least one small child (the boyfriend already has a child) wandering around. It's an accident waiting to happen.
My Springer was from working gun dog stock and, although the laziest spaniel on the face of the planet, throughly great for small children (and went to work with me!). Highly intelligent, very capable, would happily have given his life for my son. My Kokoni... has Corgi and Border Collie within her "mix", and (possibly because she's also a rescue) she is neurotic; and yes, the herding instinct is strong within her. But she is my assistance dog (I'm disabled) and that keeps her occupied - and me out in the world, as I have to push myself, for her. Both of my dogs as an adult, and the GSD of my teen years, are/were trained to hand as well as verbal signals.
Not one of them has ever snatched food from my children's mouths, or hands, no matter how tempted they might have been. Neither of my parents GSDs when I was a child ever snatched food from my mouth or hands.
Post-spaying pain, or fluctating hormones aside, @Dogincident, I genuinely think you've got more than one issue that urgently needs to be addressed correctly - for the sake of you children's safety, as well as your pup's! 