Gilda (named after Gilda Radner) was Melinda's first purebred German Shepherd. Gilda was plagued with problems from the get go. She was poorly bred and with having no experience of breeders at the time, Melinda fell victim to buying from this breeder. Gilda had an aggressive temperament toward people and had a few incidents of biting. She also had severe Hip Displaysia that caused serious pain regardless of the pain injections she recieved. With much pain, Melinda let Gilda go at the young age of 3 years old after biting a small child that stuck her fingers through the fence to say hi. Having nephews and a niece, Melinda felt it was irresponsible to have an aggressive dog and put the children at risk. Gilda had also become aggressive toward Melinda when she was touched around her hind quarters...thought to be painful from her bad hips.