Yeah, man, we lucked out, especially with Xander. Sadie is not a typical GSP, she's got a very gentle disposition, has no interest in hunting, etc. She was a breeder's dog, and has distended nipples so she obviously had pups. She got heartworms, and rather than get them taken care of, the ********* dropped her off at a county animal shelter. From there, the Mid-Atlantic GSP rescue group found her, treated the heartworms, and sent her to one of their foster homes awaiting adoption.
There are tons of great GSP's up for adoption on their site.
Xander, on the other hand, is very typical of the breed, a specimen, with AKC papers and all that. He was with a military couple who treated him really well, but they both got relocated to Japan...and to take him with them, they would have had to keep him in quarantine for SIX MONTHS. He's very high energy, and is also an attention whore and people-magnet, so 6 months in the slammer would have just broken him. So they put him up for adoption, and by a series of coincidences, I happened to be going to the town in NC where my inlaws live, and the day I was going, my mother in law saw him in the paper. By the time I dropped by to see him the next day, someone else had already "claimed" him, but the foster people liked me, and Xander really liked me, so they fudged some dates on the paperwork and we got him.