[AbbyK9]

Max von Stephanitz himself says that dogs and bitches should be "about 24" at the withers" with "2" to go either way", meaning two inches larger or smaller than that. So Von Stephanitz envisioned his "ideal" dog to be between about 22" and about 26" in height - a dog that's 27" wouldn't have been considered "outside the standard" as the original standard only says "about" that size, not "exactly" that size.

However, those 27" inch males are a far cry from what these breeders of (supposed) "old-fashioned" German Shepherds are producing. They're not breeding dogs that come out to be an inch or two above the standard - like the ones Doc is using as his example above - but breeding dogs that are 30" and taller, plus very heavy in weight as well. And I don't mean "heavy boned", although many of them are, but just plain heavy.

On the majority of "old-fashioned" German Shepherd breeders' sites that I've seen, they tout the height of their dog (above 30") as well as the weight of their dogs - and many, if not most, of these dogs are grossly overweight. When you can't see a tuck-up behind the rib cage, and have to guess where the dog's ribcage ends and his midsection begins, you have a problem. And you see a lot of those dogs with just rolls of neck fat and wobbly bellies, along with the breeder's description of how they are "large-boned and muscular, but not fat." Uh ... really? I don't think so.

IMHO I also don't believe that Doc's view of early German Shepherds necessarily holds water. While it's true that some breeders were breeding larger dogs, most of those were within Von Stephanitz's standard - a dog that is 27" still falls close to his written standard, and there's no reason why such a dog, if he is otherwise correct for the breed, wouldn't be chosen as a Sieger dog.

Doc also notes that when some breeders began breeding larger dogs, Von Stephanitz put a stop to that by choosing a relatively small (24") male as Sieger so more people would be encouraged to breed to him. That speaks volumes to Von Stephanitz's goals, IMHO - he was aware that people were oversizing and tried to put a stop to it to fit with the breed vision that he had created when he created the breed.

IMHO if the breed's founder is saying, "This is WRONG and we need to stop oversizing", maybe it's time to listen.

I think, historically speaking, the German Shepherd was never intended to be a large dog, and while some dogs were on the larger end of the standard, the majority still were not - and even those larger dogs were nowhere near the "old fashioned" German Shepherds that these breeders are producing now, where the dogs resemble more a Newfoundland than a Shepherd in size.