German Sheperd

German Shepherd Dogs can stand as high as 62.5 cm / 26” 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.”

History

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 German Shepherds and spent 35 years promoting
and refining the breed. Today, the German Shepherd’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 German Shepherd’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.

German Shepherds 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 German Shepherd 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.

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

Reference: www.akc.org