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Your "German Shepherd" today is nothing like the purebreeds from the WWII era. They were bred afterwards for looks, nothing else. The inherent intelligence rema

Your "German Shepherd" today is nothing like the purebreeds from the WWII era. They were bred afterwards for looks, nothing else. The inherent intelligence remained and was left unchanged, everything else was selectively bred, so you get to enjoy cardiac failure and hip dysplasia as a result.

tomjakubowski 10y ago
Is there some connection between the breeding of the German Shepherd and WWII? My impression is that the breed dates back at least fifty years before that.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  German Shepherds were the dog of choice on both sides in WWII, and capture the public's emotion. Disney made a historical drama "Chips, the War Dog" in the 90s. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099262/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099262/ (Though FYI, Chips was actually a Sherperd-Collie-Husky mix.)
  - feld 10y ago
    Germans extensively used Giant Schnauzers as well. In WWI as medic dogs, WWII as guard dogs. The breed was annihilated by the Russians as they extinguished almost every kennel and took home prime specimens to breed for size. This is why Giants have two types: German soft coats and Russian hard coats which are also physically larger. I have it on good authority from a couple Giant breeders in the USA that the Russians went on this kennel extermination campaign because the German soldiers were feeding dead Russians to the dogs. I have not seen this specifically documented anywhere though. It would be nice to know the true motivations behind the ruthless killing of these dogs by the Russians.
    - jacamat 10y ago
      For a long time, as a German Shepherd owner and enthusiast, I believed the old adage about white German Shepherd's being "awful." Granted, in some cases this holds true - pink skin, pink noses - typical of melanin deficiencies in the skin (and often in the eyes & brain) buuuuuut that's not where the bias started. Some of the founding Shepherd's were white! The foundation stud, Grief, was white. The creator of the breed is on record saying that white dogs have no less working capacity than any other color... So what happened? Turns out, this was due largely to nazi influence, too. The WWII era really transformed the German Shepherd. From a pastoral sheep-herding companion came a military machine. White dogs, while good at blending in with the flock and being spotted by a Shepherd in the field, were not so good on the battlefield, unfortunately for the same reasons. You can see them coming at night, they are easy targets on a black mountainside. In other words, the ideas of the time have an ENORMOUS impact on the dogs we create. I don't doubt the Giant Schnauzer story for a second. Breeds evolve to suit the government, the people, and the culture that they are born into...
- jacamat 10y ago
  It does, but Nazi control over Germany shaped and changed the kennels significantly. The Verein fur Deutsche Schaferhunde (the breed organization for the GSD at the time) was relinquished to Nazi control a few years before the founder of the breed, Von Stephanitz', death. Nazi influence on breeding and the use of dogs for experiments (Hitler's "beloved" German Shepherd, Blondi, was famously fed a cyanide pill to test its effectiveness) had quite an impact. Many of the best bloodlines have vanished because of this (in Blondi's case, her puppies were shot and killed after her death) but because of the dogs military value, this was of course not the fate of all of them. The ancestry of the "working line" dogs we have today can be traced back to these same dogs that fought alongside soldiers in WWII. What's left of them, anyway.

tomjakubowski 10y ago

Is there some connection between the breeding of the German Shepherd and WWII? My impression is that the breed dates back at least fifty years before that.

paulddraper 10y ago
German Shepherds were the dog of choice on both sides in WWII, and capture the public's emotion. Disney made a historical drama "Chips, the War Dog" in the 90s. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099262/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099262/ (Though FYI, Chips was actually a Sherperd-Collie-Husky mix.)
- feld 10y ago
  Germans extensively used Giant Schnauzers as well. In WWI as medic dogs, WWII as guard dogs. The breed was annihilated by the Russians as they extinguished almost every kennel and took home prime specimens to breed for size. This is why Giants have two types: German soft coats and Russian hard coats which are also physically larger. I have it on good authority from a couple Giant breeders in the USA that the Russians went on this kennel extermination campaign because the German soldiers were feeding dead Russians to the dogs. I have not seen this specifically documented anywhere though. It would be nice to know the true motivations behind the ruthless killing of these dogs by the Russians.
  - jacamat 10y ago
    For a long time, as a German Shepherd owner and enthusiast, I believed the old adage about white German Shepherd's being "awful." Granted, in some cases this holds true - pink skin, pink noses - typical of melanin deficiencies in the skin (and often in the eyes & brain) buuuuuut that's not where the bias started. Some of the founding Shepherd's were white! The foundation stud, Grief, was white. The creator of the breed is on record saying that white dogs have no less working capacity than any other color... So what happened? Turns out, this was due largely to nazi influence, too. The WWII era really transformed the German Shepherd. From a pastoral sheep-herding companion came a military machine. White dogs, while good at blending in with the flock and being spotted by a Shepherd in the field, were not so good on the battlefield, unfortunately for the same reasons. You can see them coming at night, they are easy targets on a black mountainside. In other words, the ideas of the time have an ENORMOUS impact on the dogs we create. I don't doubt the Giant Schnauzer story for a second. Breeds evolve to suit the government, the people, and the culture that they are born into...
jacamat 10y ago
It does, but Nazi control over Germany shaped and changed the kennels significantly. The Verein fur Deutsche Schaferhunde (the breed organization for the GSD at the time) was relinquished to Nazi control a few years before the founder of the breed, Von Stephanitz', death. Nazi influence on breeding and the use of dogs for experiments (Hitler's "beloved" German Shepherd, Blondi, was famously fed a cyanide pill to test its effectiveness) had quite an impact. Many of the best bloodlines have vanished because of this (in Blondi's case, her puppies were shot and killed after her death) but because of the dogs military value, this was of course not the fate of all of them. The ancestry of the "working line" dogs we have today can be traced back to these same dogs that fought alongside soldiers in WWII. What's left of them, anyway.