Photo courtesy of Nara U.
My grandpa always called German shepherds “German police dogs.”
That’s how they were initially marketed in the US.
It’s a lot better than the British name for them– “Alsatian wolf dog.”
They aren’t from Alsace, which is in France, and the landrace from which they are derived is mostly from southern and eastern Germany– not that close to the French border!
My great grandmother always called them German Police Dogs–in yiddish after she arrived from Poland.
Ah, but we know no one was much of a fan of German Police back then.
This is a lovely GSD BTW. I wonder what he was “improved” from as he looks like everything that was better than today’s “improved” GSDs.
I wish people could travel back in time and buy some puppies! That dog looks great!
Love the photo! I wish breeders would go back to this ‘type’. Much sounder. My dad said they called them ‘Alsatians’ because of the bias against anything German.
Yep.
My experience has been that White or Black specimens are called Alsatians, while the standard brown & black dogs are called German Shepherds or Police Dogs.
I seem to remember that the “Alsatian” name was introduced during WW1, when nothing could safely be called “German”. Even “German biscuits” (little iced biscuits with a jam filling) became “Empire biscuits”, which they are to this day. And many non-doggy people here will still call GSDs “Alsatians”.
Elizabeth
I find the name as insulting as calling that sighthound from Malta a “Pharaoh hound.”
I’m a German American. I will not use the word “Hun” to describe the gray partridges that have been introduced to parts of North America.
I haven’t turned a Belgian baby into soap in a very long time!
Look on the positive side. Most people even in England call them German Shepherds rather than Alsatians nowadays (even if a few people I’ve met think they are two separate breeds). The bad blood caused in the aftermaths of WW1 and WW2 caused worse ramifications than having to call a German breed of dog Alsatians to have the general public accept them. It could be worse it’s better than being a dachshund owner and be asked about your sausage dogs all the time – he-he!
I would direct your attention to the following sign near WWI Chicago. (My mom’s folks faced a lot of prejudice during the late 19th & early 20th Centuries.) http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3426.html
Anti-German sentiment is also how we ended up w/ Salisbury steak vice a hamburger w/ gravy.
Afterthought: Scottie, our ancestors from S-H rarely considered themselves part of a greater Germany. At best, they considered themselves Danes, but they usually thought of themselves as Schleswigers or Holsteiners. (Those on the coast were even more provincial in their political affiliations.)
My family, after seeing S-H go from being Danish, then independent, then Austrian and finally Prussian, w/in a single lifetime, had no loyalty to the idea of a greater German nationality at all. They decided enough was enough and hightailed it to IL & IA in the mass emigration of the 1870’s & 1880’s.
I love that you call your black and white dairy cattle “Frisians.”
We always called them Holsteins, which we pronounce incorrectly!
Like on Young Frankenstein.
Don`t forget that at that time even our Royal family, the Saxe-Coburg Gothas, found it expedient to become the “Windsors”……
Elizabeth
And of course, the Battenburgs became the Mountbattens.
From a scrummy marzipan enveloped cake to something carpenters do. Mind you, I’m very surprised that Saxe-Cobug Gothas hasn’t been claimed as a name for a death metal band.
I am not a Royalist, as you might guess.
Elizabeth
There are still people breeding German Shepherd Dogs much like this. But you won’t find them in any dog show :-) .
My family called them German Police Dogs too (well, actually, they pronounced it German Pleece) & that is actually a truer appellation than German Shepherd Dog, since there are far more GSDs working as police dogs than as shepherds. I used to get into arguments with people who insisted that they were two different breeds. A German Shepherd was a good family dog, but it was said that “them German Pleece’ll TURN oan ye”.
Susan Orleans writes in her book ‘Rin Tin Tin – The Life and the Legend’ that they were called Alsatians in the USA and the UK both because of WWI bias against Germany.
I am not sure if she mentioned them being called German police dogs anywhere. Perhaps only in German-American families?
“German Police Dog”.
I think I like that name better.
My grandma called them that too.
Also the late sci-fi author Phillip Jose Farmer called them that n one of the Riverworld books
It was from the seventies onward, if I recall correctly, that British GSD enthusiasts began importing the newly fashionable ‘camel’ type from Germany and when many exhibitors here tried to point out that the sloping humped back and overangulation featured in this design was frankly deplorable, their views were ignored on the basis that since these examples were bred from the top winning GSDs in Germany itself then they had to be the “correct” type.
Many of the British GSD exhibitors and breeders slavishly followed the trend and crucially so did British judges. A small group of British exhibitors and breeders resisted and continued breeding the old unexaggerated type under the name “Alsation” but the ‘camel’ breeders won the day. It didn’t help the old school that the “Alsation” type was by this time suffering quite a bit from hip dysplasia and the breeders of the new type were, I believe, having their breeding stock X rayed and hip scored before dogs and bitches were bred from.
However, from my observations it seems that ‘unofficial’ white and longhaired animals have continued to be bred physically along unexaggerated level backed ‘Alsation’ lines. I don’t know how successful this has been in recent times but one does still see them being walked around the English countryside and in my view they are so much more handsome to look at than the ‘camels’. Maybe someone with recent experience can update me on their progress?
I have a gsd who is pretty much like the dog in the pic, got her from a local rescue so no idea of the breeding. This is her
I’ve fostered several others since then, one with a straight profile and 2 with the slope. Physically they all seemed fine, but I like the straight profile more.
This is the straight profile.
This one had more of a slope, but she’d been really under exercised (as in just been in a kennel and run) until a short while before the video.
This one also has the slope, but has until recently spent much of ehr life in a shed.
Gemma ended up being quite straight (but not as much as the first 2) once she’d muscled up! I hope Katie ends up the same.
I must admit I prefer the working/straight back temperament. They are more energetic and drievey but also less excitable. Of course being shut up most/all of its life will make a dog more excitable but with other gsd’s I’ve seen the same thing.
I think in general the none standard’s are more popular tbh. I see plenty of long haired and/or white gsds they tend to have straight profiles.
Adam