German Shepherd

German Shepherd Dogs can stand as high as 26 inches at the shoulder and, when

viewed in outline, presents a picture of smooth, graceful curves rather than angles.

The natural gait is a free-and-easy trot, but they can turn it up a notch or two and

reach great speeds.

There are many reasons why German Shepherds stand in the front rank of canine

royalty, but experts say their defining attribute is character: loyalty, courage,

confidence, the ability to learn commands for many tasks, and the willingness to put

their life on the line in defense of loved ones. German Shepherds will be gentle

family pets and steadfast guardians, but, the breed standard says, there’s a “certain

aloofness that does not lend itself to immediate and indiscriminate friendships.”
The German Shepherd Dog (Deutshe Schäferhund) descends from the family of German

herding dogs that, until the late 19th century, varied in type from district to district.

In the waning years of the 1800s, a German cavalry officer, Captain Max von Stephanitz,

made it his mission to develop the ideal German herder. Von Stephanitz and like-minded

breeders crossed various strains from the northern and central districts of Germany,

resulting in the ancestors of today’s German Shepherd Dog (GSD).

Von Stephanitz co-founded the world’s first club devoted to GSDs and spent 35 years

promoting and refining the breed. Today, the GSD’s versatility is so thoroughly deployed in

the performance of myriad tasks that it is easy to forget that the breed was originally
created to herd sheep. The GSD’s now-famous qualities—intelligence, agility, speed, stealth,

and the overall air of firm authority—were forged not in the police academy but in the

sheep pasture.

GSDs became popular in the United States in the early 1900s, thanks in part to the

adventures of canine movie stars Rin-Tin-Tin and Strongheart. The GSD is among those

German breeds, the Dachshund is another, that suffered from anti-German sentiment

during and after the world wars. In World War I–era Britain, the breed was referred to as

the Alsatian, a name many British dog lovers still prefer.

With the rise of modern livestock management and the decline of herding as a canine

occupation, von Stephanitz shrewdly promoted his breed as an ideal K-9 worker. The GSD is

today the preferred dog for police and military units the world over.