47 Fun Facts About German Shepherd

By what name is the German Shepherd also known in Britain?

Britain's Kennel Club renamed the breed the Alsatian after the First World War, fearing the word 'German' would hurt its popularity.

Who developed the German Shepherd breed from 1899?

Max von Stephanitz. A former cavalry captain who had studied at Berlin's veterinary college, he held that what a dog could do mattered as much as how it looked.

What ear shape does the breed standard require of an adult German Shepherd?

Erect. The ideal pair stand parallel and point straight up when the dog is alert, and the American standard is blunt about the alternative: a dog whose ears hang must be disqualified from the show ring.

In which country did an American soldier find the puppy Rin Tin Tin during the First World War?

France. Lee Duncan pulled the puppy out of a shelled kennel on the battlefield, took him home to California and put him in the movies, where he became one of the biggest stars of the silent era.

The very first registered German Shepherd was bought in 1899 at what kind of event?

A dog show. The breed's founder spotted a four-year-old called Hektor there, paid 200 gold marks on the spot, renamed him Horand von Grafrath and within a month had started a club with Horand as entry number one.

Until 1983, the American Kennel Club showed German Shepherds in which group?

Working. The Herding Group did not exist until 1983, when the club split the stock-driving breeds out of the Working Group.

Which breed now shares much of the German Shepherd's police and military work?

Belgian Malinois. Often mistaken for a German Shepherd but lighter, it is a military favourite: Cairo, the dog on the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, was one.

In which Will Smith film is a German Shepherd called Sam his only companion in a deserted New York?

I Am Legend. Sam is short for Samantha, and she is wounded fighting infected dogs, which costs Smith's lone survivor his last companion.

Which country banned German Shepherd imports in 1929, fearing the dogs would savage its sheep flocks?

Australia. Graziers also feared the dogs would breed with dingoes and produce a worse sheep-killer, and a ban first set for five years was not lifted for good until the 1970s.

Which cowboy star rode Trigger and kept a German Shepherd called Bullet on his 1950s television show?

Roy Rogers. Bullet the Wonder Dog shared the billing with Dale Evans and the palomino, which its owner had mounted after it died; the stuffed horse sold at a 2010 auction for $266,500.

Rumor Has It, the German Shepherd crowned Best in Show at Westminster in 2017, was named after a hit by which singer?

Adele. Rumor was the favourite in 2016 and lost, so her handler shelved his plan to retire her and came back a year later to take the top prize.

Schutzhund, the German sport devised to test which German Shepherds were fit to breed, takes its name from words meaning what?

Protection dog. Guarding is only a third of the trial, which also scores tracking and obedience, and dogs of other breeds now take part as well.

Before the UK's 'Finn's Law', named for a stabbed police German Shepherd, wounding a police dog could be charged only as what?

Criminal damage. In law Finn was property, like a broken window, so his handler campaigned, taking him all the way to the 2019 Britain's Got Talent final, and the law changed that year.

Which breed topped America's popularity list for 31 years, ahead of the German Shepherd?

Labrador Retriever. Its run on the American Kennel Club's list ended with the 2022 rankings, when the French Bulldog took the top spot for the first time and the German Shepherd, third in 2020, had slipped to fourth.

Trakr, the German Shepherd that found the last survivor at Ground Zero, won a 2008 contest with what prize?

Being cloned. A California biotech firm judged the retired Canadian police dog the world's most clone-worthy, and five genetic copies reached his handler in June 2009, weeks after he died aged 16.

Breed standards describe the German Shepherd as a specialist at which gait?

Trot. A dog that worked sheep all day needed stamina more than sprint speed, so the standard asks for a stride that covers the most ground with the fewest steps.

Which German Shepherd coat colour means instant disqualification from conformation showing?

An all-white coat is a disqualification in the AKC ring and most other standards; blue and liver are serious faults, while sable and all-black are acceptable.

Two short-coated German Shepherds can produce a long-haired puppy because the long-coat gene is what?

Recessive. A puppy needs a copy from each parent, so the trait can hide for generations; long coats were long treated as a fault, and the breed's international standard admitted them only in 2010.

Black body markings on a German Shepherd range from a classic 'saddle' to what larger pattern?

Blanket. Dogs with either marking are born black with tan points, and the black draws back across the body as they grow.

Which larger, cold-hardy variety of the German Shepherd was developed for military and police service?

East-European. Soviet breeders selected for dogs that could serve anywhere from desert to tundra, and the result got its own standard in 1955.

Dutch breeder Leendert Saarloos thought the German Shepherd had grown too tame and in the 1930s crossed one with which animal?

A wolf. He hoped wild blood would make a better working dog, but the offspring grew reserved and lost the knack for work, so the Saarloos wolfdog survives as a companion instead.

The American breed standard says a German Shepherd's tail should hang at rest in a slight curve like which weapon?

A saber. The UK's Kennel Club reaches for the same sword, and the American standard is strict about the rest: a dog whose tail has been docked is disqualified from the ring outright.

Stanley Coren's well-known ranking of dog intelligence puts the German Shepherd third, behind the Poodle and which top-ranked breed?

Border Collie. Coren never tested the dogs himself: he asked some 200 obedience-trial judges to rank the breeds they had watched in the ring, and the Afghan came bottom of the list.

German Shepherd breeders X-ray their dogs before mating to screen for which inherited joint disorder?

Hip dysplasia. The ball of the thigh bone sits loosely in its socket and grinds the joint towards arthritis, and about one in five German Shepherds on the main US registry is affected.

The gene fault that slowly paralyses older German Shepherds also causes a form of which human disease?

Lou Gehrig's disease. Doctors call it ALS, and because dogs with degenerative myelopathy show similar spinal damage, researchers study the illness as a naturally occurring animal model of the human one.

An inherited dwarfism in German Shepherds comes from the failure of which hormone gland?

Pituitary. Without the gland's hormones the dogs stay small and keep their soft, woolly puppy coat; Dutch researchers traced the fault to a single gene in 2011, and a DNA test now lets breeders avoid pairing two carriers.

Gunther, a German Shepherd long billed as the world's richest dog, supposedly bought a Miami mansion from which pop star?

Madonna. The sale in 2000 was real, but the countess said to have left the dog her fortune was invented by an Italian drug-company heir, and in 2021 the AP withdrew a story that had fallen for the stunt.

A German Shepherd that eats ravenously yet wastes away may lack digestive enzymes from which organ?

Pancreas. The condition is called EPI, German Shepherds account for about two-thirds of canine cases, and the fix is lifelong: dried replacement enzymes mixed into the dog's food.

America's first Seeing Eye dog, a German Shepherd, was trained at Dorothy Eustis's Alpine kennel, Fortunate Fields, in which country?

Switzerland. Her first American pupil, a blind young man from Nashville, crossed the Atlantic in 1928 in the care of American Express, and said he was shipped like a parcel.

Morris Frank refused to shout 'Come, Kiss!' in the street, so he gave his pioneering German Shepherd guide dog which name?

Buddy. She led him across one of New York's most dangerous streets in front of doubting reporters in 1928, and he gave every guide dog he owned afterwards the same name.

Herding German Shepherds kept grazing sheep off crops by acting as a living what?

Fence. The farmland had no real fences, so containing the flock was the dog's job: it patrolled the border of the grazing and turned back sheep that strayed towards the crops.

Zuyaqui, a stuffed German Shepherd sniffer dog, stands guard over drug lords' gold pistols in which country's army museum?

Mexico. He is credited with sniffing out more drugs than any other dog in the country's history, yet few people ever see him, because the museum sits inside the defence ministry and is closed to the public.

The BBC documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed said critics mock the way show-ring German Shepherds move by calling them what?

Half dog, half frog. The 2008 film blamed ever more extreme show breeding, and within two years the Kennel Club called weak hindquarters the breed's biggest problem and planned new training for judges.

Which German Shepherd, a wartime Red Cross dog from Berlin, became a Hollywood star in 1921, before Rin Tin Tin?

Strongheart. Born Etzel von Oeringen and schooled in the Berlin police kennels, he owed his screen name to a studio publicity department, which renamed him before his first film, The Silent Call, made him a star.

What was the name of Hitler's German Shepherd, on which a cyanide capsule was tested in 1945?

Blondi died when Dr. Werner Haase tested the capsule; a bunker nurse later said the dog's death upset people there more than Eva Braun's suicide.

Which president's German Shepherd, Major, bit a senator and the British PM at the White House in 1933?

Franklin D. Roosevelt. History repeated itself in 2021, when Joe Biden's German Shepherd, also named Major, was sent home to Delaware after a biting incident with White House security.

In the Austrian TV series Inspector Rex, a German Shepherd helps the homicide squad catch killers in which city?

Vienna. The original ran for ten years from 1994, an Italian revival then moved the dog to Rome, and in 2026 a new Rex went back on the beat in his home city.

Kántor, a real 1950s police dog whose first case was a chicken theft, became a 1975 TV hero in which country?

Hungary. He once followed a single scent trail for a day and a half, covering more than 100 km with his handler, and after his death his preserved body went on show in Budapest's police museum.

Which masked canine crime-fighter, a German Shepherd, debuted in DC Comics in 1955?

Ace the Bat-Hound. The mask had a job: Bruce Wayne had already advertised the stray under his own name, and a telltale mark on its forehead would have led anyone who saw it beside Batman straight back to him.

Britain's Dickin Medal, which German Shepherd Apollo received after 9/11, is called the animals' what?

Victoria Cross. At the same 2002 ceremony it also went to two guide dogs who had led their blind owners down the stairwells of the World Trade Center, more than 70 floors, before the towers fell.

Nemo, a US Air Force German Shepherd, lost an eye saving his wounded handler at Tan Son Nhut in which war?

Vietnam War. Shot below the eye, he still crawled to his badly wounded handler and lay across him until help came, and the Air Force flew him home to a hero's retirement in Texas.

Antis, a Dickin Medal German Shepherd, helped his airman owner escape across the border after the 1948 communist takeover of which country?

Czechoslovakia. He had flown some 30 wartime bombing raids with his master's RAF crew against regulations, and on the 1948 escape he steered the party past searchlights and a machine-gun post into West Germany.

Lucca, a US Marine Corps German Shepherd cross, received the Dickin Medal in 2016 after losing a leg to what?

An IED. On more than 400 patrols nobody walking behind her was ever hurt, and on the last one she had already found a 30-pound bomb and was sniffing for more when a second went off.

Burt Reynolds voiced Charlie, a shady German Shepherd in 1930s New Orleans, in which 1989 animated film?

All Dogs Go to Heaven. Its director, Don Bluth, had led a walkout of animators from Disney ten years earlier, and his film opened the same week as his old studio's The Little Mermaid.

Which actor plays the detective partnered with Jerry Lee, a wilful German Shepherd police dog, in the 1989 comedy K-9?

James Belushi. His co-star was played mainly by a young shepherd named Rando, who won the part because, his trainer said, scruffy and police-dog routines can be cued but a regal look has to be the dog's own.

The German Shepherd who played TV's Littlest Hobo was named after which European capital, his trainer's wartime army posting?

London. The character he played never had a name at all, and however much the people he rescued wanted to keep him, he walked off alone at the end of every episode.

River, a real German Shepherd, was the model for the canine companion Dogmeat in which 2015 video game?

Fallout 4. On walks with the designers River would run ahead and then stop to look back and check on them, and the team copied the habit into the game so that Dogmeat does the same to the player.