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Loyal, confident,
courageous
and steady
About the Breed
The AKC describes the German Shepherd as, "Generally considered dogkind's finest all-purpose worker. The German Shepherd Dog is a large, agile, muscular dog of noble character and high intelligence. Loyal, confident, courageous, and steady, the German Shepherd is truly a dog lover's delight. 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."
Size: How big will my German Shepherd get?
When fully grown, the average German Shepherd male stands between 24-26 inches tall at the shoulder and are between 70-90 pounds. Females stand between 22-24 inches tall at the shoulder and are typically between 65-80 pounds. German Shepherds usually stop growing between 18-24 months old.
German Shepherd History
Coats and Colors
The German Shepherd Dog, also known as the Deutsher Schäferhund, Alsatian, or Altdeutsche Schäferhunde, descends from the family of German herding dogs that, until the late 19th century, varied in type depending on the area in which they originated.
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 other like-minded breeders crossed various strains from the central and northern 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 some German breeds, 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.
The German Shepherd comes in many colors such as black, black and tan, black and red, sable, and bi-colored. Most colors are permissible and can be registered by the AKC. Strong rich colors are preferred. Pale, washed-out colors and blues, whites or livers are considered faults by the AKC.
The German shepherd is available in four different coats- short with an undercoat (stock coat), medium with an undercoat (plush coat), long with an undercoat (long coat), and long with a thick undercoat, (plush long coat).
