Conditioned Response Imagine being five years old and being attacked by a four-year-old German Shepherd dog. That is exactly what happened to my brother-in-law, Timmy. Ironically enough we grew up as neighbors, my sister later married him. I remember growing up with an elderly man living in the house directly behind my now brother-in-law’s house. This man adopted a German Shepherd puppy as his only companion after his wife died just a year or so before. In the neighborhood we grew up in there was a park and pond, of course that is where you would find all of the kids who lived in the neighborhood. One day the German Shepherd got lose and ran into the park where all the neighborhood kids were. He chased Timmy into a tree line and attacked him.