The founder of the German Shepherd Dog breed, Captain Max Von Stephanitz, aimed for a breed of Shepherd Dog that was a utility dog with outstanding intelligence. He considered beauty as secondary to intelligence, temperament and structural efficiency. He also stated that there was no bad colour for a good dog. The traditional early Shepherd Dogs' colours varied, and included white, cream, brindle, sable, blue and black. Coat lengths and textures varied from short to wire and long coats.
Roach backs and extreme angulation were considered as highly undesirable.
Unfortunately today, bloodlines are being limited with the breeding mainly for black and tan or sable dogs.
Show breeders often make the mistake of breeding from bloodlines that do well in the Show ring. This restricts the gene pool to dogs which are being bred for fashion, and not for the best temperament, health, structure or intelligence.
The foundation German Shepherds were long-legged and leaner and squarer than the dogs we see today. Although Von Stephanitz bred to produce dogs with shorter legs and some angulation of the hindquarters, he would no doubt be horrified with the current trend to breed extremely angulated dogs which often have wobbly back ends and hip problems. These poor creatures can hardly stand, let alone fulfil the requirements of a working dog to be able to run all day. Breed judges should consider that the original dogs were bred as working dogs. Dogs with rear-end faults should be disqualified from the Show ring.
Breeders need to recognise that there are basically two types of German Shepherds:
high-drive working dogs that would be ideal as sheep-dogs, police dogs, agility dogs and tracking dogs etc., and
low-drive dogs that make ideal family pets or companion dogs in nursing homes etc.
High drive working dogs should not be sold as family pets. These dogs may jump fences or tunnel out of a yard, and can be uncontrollable unless they are doing what they are bred to do - to work. These dogs if they are sold as pets often end up in animal shelters or escape from back yards and become road accident statistics.
The aim of this Club is to improve the German Shepherd gene pool by breeding dogs with the more traditional and natural body shape.
We would like German Shepherd breeders to find alternatives to the killing (euphemistically referred to as 'culling', but it has the same effect on the puppy!) of pups which don't conform to the latest Show-ring fad.
Colour and coat length should not be primary considerations when breeding for a more soundly- structured German Shepherd. The Breed Standard, as regards to colour, should be changed to encourage the breeding of any coloured dogs that are good G.S.D. types and which can perform the tasks for which they are bred. Colour must always be a secondary issue behind structure, temperament and intelligence.
To contact the Australian Traditional German Shepherd Club send an SMS (in Australia) to 0403 719 960