Friday, July 25, 2008

German Shepherd Dog

The German Shepherd Dog's (GSD) roots go back to the late 1800's in Germany where it was used as a shepherding dog. The German shepherd dogs are very skilled working dogs due to their intelligence, strength and obedience. Today, German shepherd dog is one of the most widely-used breeds in a wide variety of scent-work roles. They are commonly used as Police dogs which include search and rescue, cadaver searching, narcotics detection, explosives detection, accelerant detection, and mine detection dog, amongst others. They are also being used as military attack dogs because German shepherds have the strongset bite of all domestic dogs which is around 250-750-1200 pounds

Despite their potential ferocity, due to their loyal and protective nature the breed make good house pets and guard dogs. The German Shepherd Dog is nothing short of a highly gifted dog. Its intelligence is the envy of most of the dog world. It is able to perform almost any task that man has asked of it, including guide dog, avalanche rescue, tracking, watchdog, police dog, drug and bomb sniffing, and you can still find them herding sheep in its native homeland.

History of GSD from Wikipedia.com

“The original idea of the breed dates back to 1891, when the Phylax Society was formed with the intention of standardising German dog breeds.[5] The society disbanded in 1894 and was superseded by the Society for the German Shepherd Dog (Verein fur Deutsche Schaferhunde), founded in 1899. The chair-person of the society was Max von Stephanitz, the man now credited with being the creator of the breed.[6] The first known German Shepherd Dog was Horand v Grafrath, which von Stephanitz purchased at a market, after being impressed by the dogs intelligence.[5] Grafrath was later used as the basis for all future Society breeding programs.”

The German Shepherds are generally between 23 and 25 inches (60 to 65 cm) at the withers and usually weighs from 65 to 88 lb (30 to 40 kg). They have a domed forehead, a long square-cut muzzle and a black nose. Their strong jaws and scissor-like bite makes the German shepherd dogs a good military and police dog. They have large ears which stand erect, open at the front and parallel, but are often pulled back during movement. They also have a long neck, which is raised when excited and lowered when moving at a fast pace.