German Shepherd origin: where do German Shepherds come from? Do German Shepherds come from Germany? After all, Labrador Retrievers do not originally come from Labrador. Great Danes do not come from Denmark. Is a rose by any other name also a German Shepherd? With apologies to Shakespeare.
Where do German Shepherds come from? Germany. The German Shepherd Dog did originate in Germany, as the name suggests.
The full story of how these dogs that were used to herd sheep in Germany came to be an internationally known, popular and loved dog breed is an interesting and adventurous one…
Kinds of German Shepherd Breeds
If you try to find out how many kinds of shepherd dogs there are, you get a list of 28. Yes, twenty-eight!
Including the poodle. Ahem.
Other lists are a bit more conservative and stop at 20. Without poodles. Other lists end up with 32. Also without poodles.
My advice:
Be sure to call a German Shepherd by its full name, otherwise who knows what you may end up with!
Now, there is only one German Shepherd dog breed.
Both the American Kennel Club (AKC) and the British Kennel Club (known as The Kennel Club) have only one breed standard. Different coat lengths and colors are included but are not recognized as different breeds.
But you get seven different “lines” in the breed and they do have different backgrounds and different characteristics.
The German Shepherd “Lines”
There are two categories of lines:
- Working lines
- Show lines
The seven recognized German Shepherd lines are:
- Czech working line
- East German working line
- West German working line
- American show line
- Canadian show line
- West German show line
- Mixed line
The Original German Shepherd
Max Emil Friedrich von Stephanitz (December 30, 1864 – 22 April 1936) was a captain in the German cavalry who was responsible for buying a dog at a show and registering it officially as the first ever “German Shepherd Dog”.
His registration number?
SZ1.
On April 22, 1899 von Stephanitz and some friends founded the organization that carried out the registration. The organization (or Society) was called the “Verein für Deutsche Schäferhunde” (the Association for German Shepherds) with its first headquarters in Stuttgart.
This organization still exists today with headquarters in Augsburg, Germany.
Von Stephanitz was the first President.
The show dog that he bought for 200 Deutsche Mark (a high price at the time) was called Hektor Linksrhein but he renamed and registered it as Horand von Grafrath.
This dog in effect is the ancestor of all German Shepherds today. It is as famous in German Shepherd circles as Adam.
Wolf Ancestry of the German Shepherd
Horand was a very special dog who had all the characteristics that von Stephanitz wanted to develop.
It was rumored that Horand was one quarter wolf (see the book “No products found.” by Raymond Pierotti and Brandy R. Fogg).
According to some sources, there are four Wolf Crosses in the original German Shepherd studbook, Zuchtbuch für Deutsche Schäferhunde.
This is recorded within the two pages of entries from SZ No. 41 to SZ No. 76. This book is only accessible in selected libraries so it is a bit hard to check whether these crossings were in fact so recorded.
Or was it just a dog named “Wolf” (see pedigree trees)?
True or not, the German Shepherd certainly is one of the breeds that immediately suggests “wolf” to the observer.
Records say that Stephanitz went on to breed Horand to dogs from the central German and southern German breeds of the herding dogs that existed at that time.
Many of them were related to Horand in some way.
In fact, he was crossbred with bitches who stemmed from his paternal grandfather Pollux. They and their progeny are legendary:
Beowulf, Dewet Barbarossa, Hector von Schwaben, and many others.
Who Was Horand?
So Horand is the Grand Sire of all GSD’s, but where did he come from?
He was bred in 1895 by Friedrich Sparwasser.
Herr Sparwasser had a kennel in Frankfurt devoted to raising sheepdogs. He obtained his first pair of dogs from Herr Wachsmuth in Hanau, whose dogs, in turn, were of Thuringian stock.
His parents, whose registration numbers are higher than his, were Kastor (Sire) SZ 153 and Lene (Dam) SZ 156.
The grandparents are also known.
But even before sheep herding dogs were being bred and later registered as German Shepherds, what were the dogs like from whom they descended?
Before Horand
Apparently, there were three main kinds of sheepdogs prevalent at the time when breeders like Sparwasser started to attempt to breed for more uniformity among the dogs.
They were classified in reference to their coats:
- Rough Coats, who were thought to have originated in Hanover;
- Long Hairs, no specific origin but still German;
- Short Hairs, later called wirehairs, also generally German.
Another more detailed origin of types rests on geography:
- The Thuringian dogs, of which Horand was one, were known for their exuberant energy, sharpness, and wolf-like appearance. Their ‘grey’ coloring was definitely partly the cause of this description.
- The Wurttemberg sheepdog was much larger. They were heavier-boned, had better movement, a bushy and well-carried tail, and has large, thick paws that allowed them to work all day on any type of terrain. In addition, they were intelligent, biddable, and trainable. Attributes that some of the Thuringian dogs unfortunately lacked.They are credited with contributing the cool and aloof temperament, trotting structure, working ability, high intelligence, and courage of the modern well-bred GSD. Incidentally, the Duke of Wirtemberg (old spelling) around 1711 had a black dog named Melac, who some called a wolf (Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, Vol II. 1834. p.207) and others a wolf-dog. No record of progeny though.
- The Swabian dog was more like the picture we have of the original shepherd dogs. They lived in the fields with the sheep, protecting the flocks from all kinds of predators. The largest of the three types, they were also intelligent, steady, but versatile. Police and military GSDs owe their characteristic versatility, strong temperament, and working ability to the Swabian dogs. They were also the ones that were good with children and contributed the longhaired coat to the breed.
An unreferenced source states that:
“The early ancestors of the GSD were developed from crosses between old Ryoden Wolfdogs, Altdeutsche Hutenhunds, Germanische Baerenhunds, Howavarts, Harz Foxdogs, Serbian Shumadiners, Karavlach Herders, Belgian and Dutch Shepherd Dogs, Karst Sheepdogs, Scottish Collies, Bohemian Shepherd Dogs, Tatras, Beaucerons, Great Pyrs and other European working breeds”.
– Unreferenced source
Almost every dog in Europe then. Poodle, anyone?
Whether German Shepherds originated from wolves in the past long ago or not, they seem to strike a resonant note in most people.
They are not the Number 2 most popular breed for nothing.
In the wrong hands, any dog turns into a threat to society or a whimpering fearful mutt. German Shepherds deserve the accolades of courage and loyalty, not the hysterical hype of “most dangerous dog on the planet” and other epithets.
Related Questions
No. All the early dogs were from well-known and respected German lines. Later, certain traits were favored by American breeders that diverged from the German ideal, but registered dogs should be traceable to a reputed bloodline.
Most sources state that it is a cross between a GSD and a Shiloh shepherd dog, with some Great Pyrenees thrown in. What is a Shiloh Shepherd? A cross between a GSD and a Alaskan Malamute. Both King and Shiloh shepherds are crossbreeds and not recognized by kennel clubs.
There is some scientific evidence that the three main lines, working line, show line and mixed line, are genetically different. However, the main differences are in the purpose for which they have been bred and the resulting temperament.
