OK I'm having a difference of opinion on another forum and need some of you GSD experts to give me the facts ....I am being told that GSD were crossed with wolves around 100 years ago and that is why they were originally called wolf dogs ....I don't think this is correct ....does anyone know ?

Yvonne

As far as i am aware and after a breif refresher via google, no, German shepherds have never had any wolf blood.

There ARE 'wolfdogs' out there, i think theres a czech wolf dog...

The confusion arises from the fact that the Deutsche Schäferhunde (sp?)(the original name) translated to english as German Shepherd Dog has not always been called this.

During times when all things German were not particularly popular, the GSD was called the Alsatian Shepherd or Alsatian Wolf Dog, purely to avoid the german connection and probably to make people think they are something more exotic than they are.

In 1977 though the name was changed back to the original,  (i think), the correct name now is German Shepherd Dog.

This rumour is slightly less common than the usual one, which is that the Alsatian and the GSD are two different breeds. They are not!

Em (sure now some proper shep people will come and kick my butt for having got it all wrong!)

what what I know I agree with theemx, there certainly seem to be a lot of odd ideas out there about GSDs, the most common i come across is that short haired ones are alsations and long haired are german shepherds, also rubbish.

As I understand it, the breed name Alsatian Wolf Dog was chosen purely to avoid the German connection & to emphasize the wolf-like head. Not the best decision ever made for the breed!

There is a breed, the Saarloos Wolf Dog, which was a GSD crossed with a wolf.

Yes, they were created from a male Carpathian wolf bred to a GSD bitch.

Hi Yvonne,

Recent wolf blood in the GSD is only something we can speculate on.  No one knows for sure.  I read somewhere that Horland was quarter wolf.  I don't know how true that is.

Fred Lanting claims that 'one of the esterase (blood protein) alleles called ArE-D, common in wolfs, very rare in dogs, is relatively common in the GSD'. 

According to some, there is no doubt that wolves were introduced into domesticated shepherd's dogs in Northern Germany before the war.  Some say that the term 'Alsatian Wolf Dog' originated from a change to the more modern GSD type where smaller, lithe dogs became popular, and some of this change was due to the occasional interbreeding with wolves. 

During the war, Deutsche Shaferhund was renamed to Alsatian Shepherd or Alsatian Wolf Dog as Em says.  Apparently there was a type called the Alsatian Shepherd at the time which differed in type to the GSD - larger with a longer coat.  It is thought that these dogs may have been blended into the modern GSD type.  The GSD roots go back much further than the formation of the SV and it gets mighty confusing. 

Based on what is speculated about the breeding at the time, I don't think anyone can say with certainty that there isn't recent wolf blood in the GSD.

During the war, Deutsche Shaferhund was renamed to Alsatian Shepherd or Alsatian Wolf Dog as Em says.  Apparently there was a type called the Alsatian Shepherd at the time which differed in type to the GSD - larger with a longer coat.  It is thought that these dogs may have been blended into the modern GSD type.  The GSD roots go back much further than the formation of the SV and it gets mighty confusing.

No No No No No

The British KC  called the GSD Alsatian Wolfdogs after the first world war due to the massive anti german feeling here in the UK They dropped the wolfdog(which was added because they have "wolflike ears"not because they had wolves used in their breeding, there has never been a shepherding breed in Alscae Lorraine that in anyway resembles a GSD & was never called an Alsatian Shepherd. The name was made up by the KC & one of the first kennels was the Picardy "Alsatians"based on some very poor quality  GSDs acquired from the German soldiers at the end of WWI(not WWII)

The confusion arises because there is a "Picardy"sheepdog not related in anyway to GSDs

BTW the OP was made in July last year

ooh hadnt noticed the date of the post.....

But i didnt dig it up, it was on (for me anyway) the first page of this part of the forum.... odd?

weird... the date of the first post on my screen is " By Trevor Date 05.01.07" as in... yesterday...

Moonmaiden you sure you weren't looking at the time of the post? "07:17"

Debs

Doh<hits self on head>been using US style dates for tooooooooooooooooooo long lolololol

Heelp - I'm even more confused now - is there any truth in the statement that GSD's were interbred with wolves at the beginning of the last century ? - I'm sure I've read ( from Malcolm Willis I think ) that this is not true but is a myth that crops up occasionally - what's the truth ?

Ta

Yvonne

Yvonne, my mate has just been telling me there was a programme he watched a few months ago about wolf blood in the GSD.  I didn't see it and he can't remember the name of it.  Does anyone remember seeing something like this on TV?

As mentioned earlier, Saarlos wolfhounds were created by crossing a male wolf with a GSD bitch very early last century.  As far as I'm aware, it had nothing to do with adding wolf blood to GSD lines but only creating that new breed.

You've may have seen this before -

"The Sieger of 1900 and 1901 was Hektor v Scwaben SZ 13 who was a son of Horand v Grafrath out of the bitch Mores Plieningen SZ 159. She was a softish-eared bitch born in 1984 and according to Horowitz, (1924) had wolf ancestry. He cited Otto Rahm of the Wohlden kennels in Switzerland as claiming that this bich was the result of mating a male wolf to a shepherd bitch. Horowitz then cites Von Stephanitz (1903) to the effect that the wolf cross was of earlier vintage and it was the great-grandsire of Mores which was a wolf/dog cross having been born in Stuttgart zoo in 1881. Later, Von Sephanitz (1923) denied this report and in 1927 he expanded on the subject in an attempt to denigrate the writings of a Belgian author (L. Huyghebaert) who had suggested that the GSD stemmed from wolf crossing. Accoring to Von Stephanitz (1927) the wolf cross in Stuttgart zoo had occurred but had no connection with Mores Pleiningen. Bearing in mind the inaccuracies of pedigrees at that time and the ability of breeders to change dogs' names, it is doubtful if any early authorities could be dogmatic about any pedigrees."

Malcolm B Willis (1991) The German Shepherd Dog, A genetic History of the Breed - page 4

The truth is we will never know for sure.   Whatever the truth, today's GSD is probably no more wolf than the average breed.

>The name was made up by the KC

I understood the term 'Alsatian wolf dog' was in use before that, MM, maybe as a nickname? I don't know.

> there has never been a shepherding breed in Alscae Lorraine that in anyway resembles a GSD & was never called an Alsatian Shepherd.

I have come across a type called an Alsatian Shepherd in Alsace written about late in the first half of the 20th century and allegedly this type was mistakenly called a GSD.  Maybe it was a type of GSD, maybe it was a name for a particular type of local dog, we'll never know.   But the term Alsatian existed in Alsace long before the KC allegedly made it up.

<sigh>The KC made up the name, Alsatian Wolfdog, for the German Shepherd Dog not the name Alsatian as people from Alsace are called Alsatians & have been for centuries whilst their land has passed from French to German rule on many occassions! Col Baldwin captured a few GSDs in Alsace Lorraine from German soldiers & suggested changing the name to Alsatians to prevent the dogs suffering the physical abuse the Dachshunds did after WWI(many were kicked & attacked in the street)such was the severity of the hatred for all things German in post WWI England

The urban myth is as Malcolm describes & is attributed to a book written by Von Stephanitz, those who try to continue the myth state that the SV removed the references from his book after he died, however I have a very rare first genuine edition(In German)& there is no reference to any such cross breeding in the near past of the GSD. Such a cross would have brought many problems including lack of tractability so high on the requirements of the sheep working GSD

I have never herd of wolf blood in GSD! It could just be one of these things where people get mixed up between breeds just like people saying the alsation is short haired and the GSD is the long haired one.

Thanks everyone ..there still appears to be a difference of opinion over this though...perhaps people are confusing the known gsd/wolf hybrid (the  sarloos ) with the 'pure' GSD.

My understanding is that all the European shepherding breeds descended from more or less the same 'type' of dog and variations arose due to geographical and specific requirements - hence the emergence of the GSD, BSD,and Dutch shepherd dog - all of which bear an uncanny resemblence to each other in the early stages of their breed's fromation - I DO know that no wolf blood was involved in the formation of the varities of the BSD so assumed that this was the case for the GSD ....but I could be wrong ;)

Yvonne