Talk:German Shepherd

German Shepherd vs Alsatian(Same Thing)

Is in not true the German Shepherd and Alsation are not indeed the same thing? I believe German Shepherds to generally be of a more pure breed from German Lineage amd Alsations to be bred from a more English lineage to look the same as a German Shepherd. I have generally, for one this found Alsations to have a more pointy snout and to be more, generally speaking fair in colour.

If someone could either comfirm this, or set me straight, I would greatly appreciate it. RyanvR

I don't have the sources on me, but they are indeed the same dog. The British changed the name from GSD to Alsatian after WWII because of anti German feelings. Many other countries did aswell, however, many have since changed the name back to GSD.

In response to appearance, some breeds do vary slightly from country yo country. I believe the English line of Labrador Retrievers are a bit taller and not as stocky as their American counter parts. 173.61.237.150 (talk) 04:29, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect; the name was changed in Britain after WWI, as the article describes. But they are the same dog; I had what my folks called an Alsatian when I was small, and it wasn't until I was adult that I realized that "Alsatian" is what many Jews in the US were calling German Shepherds in the '50s. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 18:36, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

has nothing to do with what "Jews in the US were calling German Shepherds in the '50s" - it was what they were called in the UK during WWII. The name was officially changed back to German Shepherd Dog (from "Alsatian Wolf Dog") in 1977; according to the breed's book published in the Terra Nova breed series. The breed book published by The Kennel Club Books states the same thing and further states that it was known as "Shepherd Dogs" or "Police Dogs" in the US during the same WWII period. try to get your facts sourced right - and please don't respond saying your parents were American Jews in the 1950s. i'll happily conceded the point if you provide a source other than that. thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.251.243.83 (talk) 00:11, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll say whatever I damn please, anecdotal or otherwise, on talk pages; if I were attempting to put it in the article, you'd have a point to make here. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 15:56, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

The Chinese still call the breed Wolf-Dog. 86.176.48.3 (talk) 14:15, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Playing

I'm thinking the "playing" section doesn't belong. It's pretty much material for a how-to guide, and isn't specific to GSD's anyway (many breeds need active play, and some need a heck of a lot more than a GSD.) --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 17:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Somebody messing with the article?

Some defenitely false info in the article

In *Origins*, the first line: In Europe during the 1700 BCE , attempts were being made to standardize breeds.

and later: To combat these differences, the Phylax Society was formed in 1791 with

and: In 1899, Von Stephanitz was attending a dog show when he was shown a dog named Elkein Shekletor. Elkein was 1/4th wolf. Elkein was the ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.181.93.84 (talk) 09:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed those mentioned above (1800s; 1891; Hektor Linksrhein)
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 Lp  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lakiopaalu (talk • contribs) 13:57, 24 January 2011 (UTC) 

The article was definetely vandalized, I went back and found some more that was changed and sources were removed, I think I fixed everything. ~~ GB fan ~~ 15:03, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The part "1/4th wolf" is false, I belive.

Pedigree for Hector:

http://gsdonline.com/bszs/index.php?sz=1 and http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/pedigree/1208.html

His maternal grandfather (Greif (from kennel Sparwasser)) was a white dog, so genetically he was 1/4 white (not in appearance, though; black and gray, not "black and tan" like most of the showline dogs today)

---- Lakiopaalu — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lakiopaalu (talk • contribs) 11:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Redirect?

Is there any real reason German Shepherd redirects here, German Shepherd Dog. Why isn't German Shepherd the location of the article? -Deathsythe (talk) 19:04, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

German Shepherd Dog is the proper name, just like Belgian Shepherd Dog or Anatolian Shepherd Dog Anna ^talk 18:16, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Except that the vast majority of reliable sources don't support this assertion at all. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 09:18, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved all, boldly assuming that the target for the last move should be White Shepherd. Favonian (talk) 17:13, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

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• German Shepherd Dog → German Shepherd
• Anatolian Shepherd Dog → Anatolian Shepherd
• Georgian Shepherd Dog → Georgian Shepherd
• Belgian Shepherd Dog → Belgian Shepherd
• White Shepherd Dog → White Shepherd Dog

– The current names are blatant transgressions of WP:COMMONNAME. Most reliable sources, both dog-specialized and general, give the name of the breed as "German Shepherd" or usually as "German shepherd" outside of dog-specific publications (that capitalization fetish is hardly universal, even in dog publications; I don't want to address the capitalization issue at this time, because it's still under discussion at WT:MOSCAPS more broadly, and I doubt consensus will be reached without a site-wide RfC advertised via WP:VPP and WP:CD). "German shepherd dog" (lower case) could make sense in prose, but only when used in a context in which one might misunderstand "German shepherd" as a reference to sheep-herders from Deutschland. It's totally redundant when used with the capitalized version "German Shepherd", and redundant 9 times out of 10 even in lower case. If there is any case in which disambiguation is needed somehow, use " (dog)". This would then match the practice used for all other domestic animals (e.g. Siamese (cat), and so on). "Dog", "Cat", "Horse", etc., are not added except in the unusual case that it's almost universally used that way for the particular breed in spoken and written English. E.g., no one says "I have a Norwegian Forest and an American Quarter. But no one says "I have a Beagle Dog and a German Shepherd Dog". The opposite is generally true of dog types and landraces, e.g. mountain dog, sled dog, etc., which should not be renamed. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 09:18, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

• Rename, as nominator. I'd bet US$10,000 that less than 1% of people who arrive at German Shepherd Dog by editing the URL bar or entering text in a search field got there by using the phrase "German Shepherd Dog", capitalized or not, but via "German Shepherd", "German shepherd" and other redirects that aren't counterintuitive, geeky nonsense. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 09:18, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Amazon's top selling book on this subject is How To Train German Shepherds. (The image of a dog on the cover suggests that the book is not about training shepherds from Germany.) There is also German Shepherds For Dummies, The everything German shepherd book, and German Shepherd: Super Smart. A very small number of people in South Africa are typing in "German shepherd dog". But as far as the U.S., Canada, or Britain go, pretty much everyone is typing in just "German shepherd", according to Insights. Kauffner (talk) 14:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support I doubt that there are many readers who get to this page that are looking for "Anatolian sheepherders" or "Bavaraian sheepherders." It is only a question of making this easier for users. I also doubt that this is either 'controversial' or 'POV' pushing, as I can't imagine that anybody really cares (there may be some club somewhere that does, but somebody who asserts it should prove it. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:18, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

You might consider renaming White Shepherd Dog or White German Shepherd Dog. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Added to nom. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contribs. 07:54, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• German Shepherd is more common but GSD is the proper name. I have no problem with the move, but the lead should start with the proper name as it is now(compare United Kingdom). But "blatant viewpoint-pushing"? It's like the pot calling the non-existent kettle black. Just because you have an essay doesn't mean everything is a nail. --Dodo bird (talk) 18:19, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

• Reply: This bit's in response to the criticism of the nominator rather than the nomination: I don't see how "an over-reliance on a familiar tool" would apply to something barely two weeks old. The fact that specialists in, and non-specialists particularly fond of, a particular topic have a strong tendency on Wikipedia to advance article naming ideas and stylistic conventions from specialist works that don't match common usage would, however, appear to be a single nail that keeps popping up. I'll retract the "viewpoint-pushing" bit though; I don't want it to distract from the main rationale.

  Anyway, "the proper name" argument here is weak. One could take the hair-splitting, nit-picking position that the "proper" names of various breeds of cat are Siamese Cat, Manx Cat, Himalayan Cat, etc., and some breed registries do in fact use these overwrought names, as if they can't remember what kind of registry they are, or think their members will forget what kind of animal pedigree they are submitting. And some cat books do likewise; my shelf has The Manx Cat by D. W. Kerruish on it. But none of these articles are at such an article name, despite them being more ambiguous without "Cat" than German Shepherd is without "Dog". The only exceptions are breeds with "cat" as an integral part of a compounded formal name (Ocicat) or where use is nearly 100% consistent in including "Cat" (capitalized or not) – the only example I can think of is Norwegian Forest Cat, obviously because use of "forest" adjectivally (done because "foresty" isn't a word) is too ambiguous for nearly everyone. (In Category:Cat breeds, I see one article, the last, that needs renaming, and two that are landraces that should have " cat" and should not be in that category.) There's a similar pattern evident in horse/pony/donkey, cavy/Guinea pig, rabbit, pig, etc. article naming (often using "Breedname animaltype" instead of "Breedname (animaltype)"; the disambig style needs to be made consistent). Why should dog articles be magically different? It's pure over-disambiguation to satisfy specialist geek-out tendencies. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contribs. 07:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. The American Kennel Club uses "German Shepherd Dog", so I guess that name is not as silly as I thought at first. On the other hand, Britannica, DogChannel.com and Modern Dog Magazine title their main entries on this breed simply as "German shepherd." The Wiki solution is simple enough: The most common version of the name goes in the title, the longer form boldface in the opening. Kauffner (talk) 10:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support as the common name. Note the disparity of the results of a search like this vs. this and this vs. this.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:24, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Ear Health

I could be wrong but I read in a book by animal planet that since their ears are pointed up they allow for good air flow and are less prone to ear infection. Also that they are more likely to get dirt in them and should be cleaned once in a while. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.116.164.136 (talk) 16:53, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Dead links

Over half of the links to breed standards in the infobox are dead links. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contribs. 07:15, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

 Fixed. Not sure whether my note re ANKC is necessary. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:44, 27 February 2012 (UTC)