Angel.page

Angel's Page

Hi, hi! (lick and grin) Before I sniff you all over, I suppose it's only proper to introduce myself. I am SNO Knight's Mystic Angel. Call me Angel, if you please.

I'm ever so glad to meet you, and you smell fascinating! I told my owners that every good dog deserves her own web page, and luckily enough, they agreed. I'll tell you a bit about myself and my breed.

If you have a White German Shepherd like me, I hope you'll leave a note in my guestbook or send me a picture.

I am a purebred White German Shepherd. My owner often gets asked that, since many people have never seen a dog like me. I'm thrilled with all the attention, and I hope that by showing people what a good dog I am, more people will come to recognize my breed.

We are a special kind of German Shepherd, and we're proud of it. Our ancestors are the same as the darker Shepherds, but our history is more, um, colorful. No distinction was made between the white and colored Shepherds until around World War II. Then a couple of things happened that nearly prevented any of us from being here.

It is said that Hitler began the extermination of White Shepherds, considering their white coats to somehow indicate weakness. After the war, that awful rumor remained, and those that had survived the war continued to be killed at birth, lest we "spread disease and inferior genes" to future generations. White-coated Shepherds were banned from all dog shows.

This is a picture of my dad, Snowman's Royal Knight. He's such a big, handsome fellow! I was born to him and Snowman's Royal Jewel at (you guessed it!) Snowman's Kennels in Maine, USA, on May 23, 1998. My ancestors are all white for at least four generations.

Here I am with my brothers and sisters? Which one am I? If you can't tell, I'm not gonna say. What a bunch of roly-poly snowballs we were then!

When the big day finally came, I was desgnated pick-of-the-litter and delivered to the family that had reserved me.

It's okay, though -- we made it. A group of White Shepherd lovers in America and Canada continued to love and raise us. We proved our value time and again as companions, guard dogs, and working dogs. Little by little, we have begun to make a comeback worldwide. Though there are still German Shepherd breeders who will not allow white dogs to live, those people are becoming fewer. Thank goodness! Even better, some breeders specialize in White German Shepherds, and have bred white dogs only to white dogs for generations. This has had an added benefit: The black-and-tans were bred to have lower backs to make them look tougher in the show ring, which inadvertently led to hip dysplasia being common in the breed. However, since we weren't shown in the ring, we avoided that style-based breeding and hip dysplasia is much rarer among us. (wags tail happily)