German Shepherds - yay or nay?

[Salamamca]

I grew up with German shepherds but I’ve seen and heard so many horror stories lately about crazy, neurotic, nervous, reactive and aggressive lines.

Has the breed gone down the pan? We’re considering our next dog but unsure what to get.

I'm now in a rented place so I can't imagine getting another big dog anytime soon but I have to say I have never felt so safe , or so loved , and my baby bear is getting on a bit now , and I absolutely dread the day I lose him . He's a massive personality. A great big dopey one . I love him dearly. I always joked if I'd known how big he'd get and how clumsy he was I'd have called him
Sherman 😂. He is like a tank .goes through anything.

@stillvicarinatutu they are both utterly adorable 😍.

@wheresmymojo she does have a lovely smile!!

My DH’s family have them. It’s a flat no from me as despite them all being experienced dog owners those dogs are very reactive and can never be let off the lead. Very obedient otherwise but I just don’t trust them around the kids. Also the malting kills me. Both households vacuum daily but it doesn’t matter - dog hair EVERYWHERE.

They are also just too big. Their length when they lay on the snug floor…. They take up the whole room. A lab size or a bit smaller is much more my preference.

How about a flat coated retriever? Intelligent, sociable good family dogs.

Can I ask how you manage this? Sounds awful. Do you get someone else to walk him? I guess going out to pub gardens etc is off the menu for you? 😞 I want a dog I can take anywhere.

Actually I love standard poodles! I think they’re beautiful and I’ve heard their intelligence is out of this world. Can you have yours off lead?
I remember the black one at crufts with the lion cut, what an incredibly beautiful dog 😱

They’re always down south 😔 long way to go

So cute! Are Scotty’s grumpy then? I always imagined they would be 😂

I find them to be very reactive towards my dog when I am out walking. I see a lot of them on lead. My dog gives them and collies a wide birth. I was bitten by a GSD years ago so they're not my favourite breed either.

All shepherd dogs can be reactive because protecting their flock is bred into them but they are highly trainable if you put in the time, effort and get expert help. My collie took a lot of effort to train well (learns things too dash including bad things!) but at 18 months you have a dog that's incredibly obedient and easy (needs a bit of walking but not more than most other midsized breeds) German shepherds are bigger and people seem more nervous of them but the training is similar

I am a whippet owner, and they always are my favourites. However, a dog is only as good as it's owner. A German shepherd attacked my dog, caused £1000s worth of vets' bills. Had the German shepherd been socialised properly and not used solely as a guard dog - then walked at a local beauty spot 🙄 - then I really don't think it would have happened. My dog gives German shepherds a wide berth, as do I, but we've met one aggressive one but hundreds of lovely ones. If you are confident training it, go for it.

"Can I ask how you manage this? Sounds awful. Do you get someone else to walk him? I guess going out to pub gardens etc is off the menu for you? 😞 I want a dog I can take anywhere."

We are still putting in tones of training with him daily, in the hope one day I can walk him/ run with him alone. My husband walks him or my FIL. If they both can't then I do enritchment at home for a good 2/3 hours. We do stiff training, or lick mats, throwing a ball.

We hope in the future with consistency he will improve enough to be able to not react with other dogs,

He protects his pact with the whole of his being and that's why he's reactive, it's just who he is. That being said he is absolutely incredible with people 🤣, not reactive at all, we managed to training that out of him with a busy household.

We accept that this is dog we have and we aren't willing to give up on him just yet, but if I could go back and do it again I Might not choose another GSD.

Sorry I haven't RTFT but we had German Shepherds growing up. We had 4 in total over the years and had a 50% success rate - two absolutely amazing dogs (well 1 dog and 1 bitch) and two absolute psychopaths who tried to kill us (quite literally).

My mothers partner had two GSD. First one was OK,second was was hughly strung and very reactive. He had to walk both early in the morning and late at night to avoid other dogs. He was extremely experienced with dogs too. I can't remember them living very long either and both had hip problems.

We had Dobermans when I grew up they are lovely but need lots of training and exercise. I really do not like GSD (been attacked as a child and adult despite loving all animals and dogs especially)... however we got an ex racing Greyhound rescue and they are lovely... big, intelligent, don't need much exercise at all, very laid back once they settle in. Life changing

We have two GSD locally, the current ones owned by a bloke who has had a series of them over the past few decades. Temperament-wise I have never known them to be a problem around other dogs or people. What does bother me about them is their confirmation, that saggy back end.

Well put together GSDs are working line, and they need a lot of input in terms of exercise and training.

As PP have said, if you want a large but fairly chill breed, maybe think more in terms of labs, standard poodles, perhaps flatcoats, curly-coats, or check out the show-bred end of some of the hunt-point-retrieve breeds (the working end is full of wonderful but really energetic and full-on dogs, and there isn't the clear show/work split you get with labs, so you would need to do your homework very carefully and meet a few to see if they would work for you.)

If you've got a flock of sheep and you are in Germany I'd say 'yay'.

“As PP have said, if you want a large but fairly chill breed, maybe think more in terms of labs”

To be fair, labs aren’t chill compared to lots of breeds, just not intense in the same way.

That’s why I’m suggesting biddable instead of intelligent is what the op might actually be after. People say intelligent meaning easy to train, really intelligent breeds like GSDs, collies, Doberman, poodles, they don’t pick up training easier, they actually think about it. So instead of going, ach I know what you meant, they’ll work out an easier way to get what they want. If you’re not keeping them engaged enough then they’re prone to going self employed and giving themselves jobs - that’s why you get a fair amount of GSDs with guarding issues and collies trying to round up traffic.

Where your gundog breeds are still clever enough, but they also want to please you, they don’t overthink things and they’re much more forgiving of training mistakes.

There’s a Discover Dogs at Crufts every year, as well as the one in London.

From your description of what you’re looking for, you want a well rounded, take anywhere family pet, but prefer large breeds.

I wouldn’t have a Dobie, for all the reasons others have stated, plus the heartbreaks that are Wobblers and DCM.

I had the most wonderful GSD in the late 80’s/early 90’s. She was a big, long-coated bear and came to us when we found her half-dead under a bush. She was my first ever dog, we nursed her back to health and she was loyal, loving, obedient and didn’t have an ounce of aggression in her. When we lost her at around 14 years old we looked into getting another, but even back then, were advised that it would be nigh on impossible to find another like her. Both conformation and temperament had been ruined through overbreeding from poor lines. There were still a couple of ‘old lines’ around at the time, but they were incredibly difficult to get a pup from. Also, public perception of GSDs had really declined by then, so taking them everywhere with you (as we did with our old girl) had become harder and harder - I think that perception is even worse these days.

If you are looking for a big-ish family pet you can take anywhere and train fairly easily (obviously with the necessary input and effort) as others have said, I would look towards gundog breeds, possibly show rather than working lines. They tend to be biddable, soft mouthed and trainable and public perception of them is better, which makes it easier to take them everywhere.

I do think if you are unsure, a trip to Discover Dogs would really help. I did this when I really wasn’t sure what breed to go for and ended up with a breed I’d never heard of, but was perfect for us.

I haven't RTFT, but it's never the dog, it's the owners and the training, or lack thereof
My neighbours have 3, they're all trainers security dogs, you rarely hear them bark, they're really friendly if they know you, so loyal.
I grew up with one again a trained security dog, and he was the soppiest dog with his family.
You have to be prepared to spend months training any dog.

I disagree, sometimes it is the dog, the breeding, the lines, the genetics …

For those saying that training is the key, can we talk about what that actually means?
My colleague got a GSD at the same time I got our dog. He does intense training three times a week in a local field including one specialised agility/defence class, on top of an hour’s walk those days. When it’s not a training day, he walks the dog twice a day for an hour each walk.
I don’t know many people who have two hours a day to dedicate to a dog away from the home. Try fitting in kids, work and friendships around that - it won’t be easy.
A more sociable hour walks and a bit of training at home is what most people can deal with. A lab or standard poodle sound ideal if you like big breeds.

This.

The overwhelming majority aren’t biddable pet dogs that are just happy to laze about and go wherever you go. They are intelligent, emotionally connected ‘thinking’ dogs that need to be kept busy and require lots of the right type of training continuously, as well as appropriate physical exercise.

Also, as @Dobermanny said, aggression/anxiety/nervousness can absolutely run in genetic lines, plus it can be affected by the pregnancy and whelping experience of the mother and subsequent raising of the pups from newborn. Not enough breeders take all this into consideration when deciding on pairings or thinking about how they are going to raise a litter, hence there being far more poorly bred dogs with problems, both psychological and physical, than there are well rounded healthy dogs. Any idiot can breed a litter, but it takes a lot more than two dogs of the same breed to raise healthy, well-adjusted puppies who will go onto to be good family pets.

It’s very easy to judge someone that has a reactive dog, but unless you know the full history, it’s not as simple as just assuming they are a bad trainer or that they haven’t trained enough/at all. Yes, lots of issues can and do arise from poor training and socialisation, but I have known of several rescue pups that came from a poor start, who could only be taken so far and would never have been manageable for someone with little or no experience. In two of those cases the whole litter was affected, despite being born and raised in foster, by experienced rescuers and having the best physical start.

What about a smooth collie. They are endangered but are absolutely beautiful dogs. Go on the collielife website for more info.

Im on my 4th GSD now and i would recommend them to someone who has lots of time and drive to put everything into the dog that they can.

They need plenty exercise but they also need plenty of mental stimulation too.

None of mine are/have been dog reactive but that is because I have been so diligent in preventing it with lots of controlled socialising and also correcting undesired reactions immediately.

They are fabulous dogs however they definitely need strong boundaries.