| The history of the German Shepherd Dog The history of the German Shepherd Dog is also the history of the man who made his vision become reality, Max von Stephanitz. He was born at the 30.12.1864 and with 19 Years he begin to work in the army. It happened at a manoeuvre at the river Rhine von Stephanitz had a break and he saw a shepherd standing near a forest. He had a crowd of sheeps and 2 dogs run around the sheeps and the dogs controlled the sheeps and the shepherd only whistles and his commands were very quiet,but the dogs do a wonderful work Von Stephanitz was fascinated for the work that the dogs show him and he wanted to have such a dog for himself. At first he tried to buy one of the two dogs,but the shepherd wanted not to sale them. Years later Stephanitz tells that this meeting was the birthday for his idea to breed the german shepherd. Max von Stephanitz started to look for dogs to found the breed that he wanted to realize. But there were so many different types of shepherddogs that he knew not which types he had to use. Then on the 15.01.1898 he buyed a 3 years old male named Hektor Linksrhein from the breeder Mr.Sparwasser in Frankfurt. Stephanitz changed the dogs name into Horand von Grafrath. Grafrath was the kenneIname of Mr.Stephanitz and his kennels were in a little town in Bavaria Kottgeisering. Horand was 61 cm big and he had good lines and a nice head. Horand was no easy dog,he likes to fight against other dogs and this was a great problem for Mr.Stephanitz. Horands Brother, Luchs Sparwasser was also a very nice male and he was used for breeding also. The most shepherds today are from the blood of Horand and Luchs. Horand von Grafrath In April,22nd 1899 a little group of men,with Tap Rittmeister Max von Stephanitz at the top,met to found the Verein f�r Deutsche Sch�ferhunde the SV in Karlsruhe,Germany. At the beginning they had 14 members in the club and only 4 years later there were 575 members in the SV. The first club magazine was printed in 1902 . In the year 1914 there were 6.000 members in the club. The great world wars 1914 + 1945 were very hard for the club,many members and many dogs lost her life. The German Shepherds were used as rescue dogs,medicinedogs,protectiondogs and maildogs. But after the war the SV grew up very fast and now we have more than 2.200 Clubs with more than 100.000 members. The SV is the greatest Dog club all over the world and in 57 countries all over the world the German Shepherd found his friends and the people Met in their clubs to work and have fun with the best dog the world has ever seen: the German Shepherd Dog. |