“Take this trouble for me: Make sure my shepherd dog remains a working dog, for I have struggled all my life for that aim.”
Rittermeister
Captain Max von Stephanitz
1864 - 1936
By "working dog" he primarily meant, herding dog. However, he realised that German shepherds could do other work as well: guard dog, sentry dog, personal protector, guide dog, messenger dog, sniffer dog, and so on.
Max von Stephanitz favoured the sheepdogs from the Thuringa and Würtemburg regions
The Thuringian dogs were viewed as the show dogs – full of vigour, erect ears, wolf grey in colour, wiry and course, small and stocky and according to von Stephanitz highly energetic and often very impudent and even untameable.
The Würtenburg dogs were seen as the working dogs, they were large, some very large with big bones and a swift gait, many had non erect ears, had a tendency to curled tails and according to von Stephanitz did not bubble over with “joie de vivre”.
Snippets taken from an article written by Louis Donald
(SV Foreign Judge) on the history of the breed.
Max von Stephanitz bought a dog that he particular fancied and renamed him after his own kennel (von Grafrath). Horand was recorded in the SV breed register as the first registered German Shepherd Dog.
First show
First Breed Survey - 1922
INFLUENTIAL MALES
Those who have written about the history of the breed highlight a number of males that have had an impact on the development of the breed. The modern German Shepherd Dog as we know it today started with the impact that Quanto von der Wienerau, Quando von Arminius and Uran vom Wildsteiger Land had on the breed. I have listed prominent dogs that are acknowledged by many in the GSD fraternity to be influential males in modern time.
Sieger is the German word used for
winner/victor/champion
SIEGER - 1899
SIEGER - 1978
Horand
von Grafrath
SIEGER - 1986
Canto
von der Wienerau
VA 9 1986/VA 6 1987
Odin
von Tannenmeise
SIEGER - 1993
Jeck von Noricum
SIEGER - 2011/12
SIEGER - 2008/9
Vegas
du Haut Mansard
SIEGER - 2000
Ursus von Batu
SIEGER - 1992
Zamb
von der Wienerau
SIEGER - 1986/87
Quando
von Arminius
SIEGER - 1984/85
Uran von der
Wildsteiger Land
Quanto
von der Wienerau
Remo
vom Fichtenschlag
Palme von der Wildsteiger Land
“Walter Martin told me that Palme was the ugly oversized sister of Perle but, according to him, she would, and proved to be the foundation of the breed as we know it today”.
Martin Göbl (von der Wildsteiger Land)
Palme produced 2 double Siegers with 9 Siegers in total