Difference between longhair and shorthair german shepherds

Question
What is the difference between longhair and shorthair German Shepherds? ALso what is the difference between American and German bred Shepherds? One last Question, why do some pictures of German Shepherds have their backs sloping so far down and others seem straight? Does it make a difference really? Thanks for your fast reply as usual.  

Joseph

Answer
Hi Joseph,  I'll answer these question in order.

1.  Actually there are longhaired shepherds and shorthaired shepherds that they term as a plush coat shepherd.  Plush coat shepherds can carry the long hair factor and pass it on to their puppies.  The long hair factor traces back to the European Shepherds and is only look down upon by most breeders here and some countries overseas.  

2.  There are a lot of differences between German an American Shepherds.  One is the angulation (which will answer your other question).  Germans breed their dogs to have more of a hump in the back which helps to keep the hips tighter so that they won't have a prevalance to get hip dysplasia.  The Americans breed to get the more angulation to make them look fancier in the ring.  The bad part about this practice is that they are unaturally separating the hips by breeding them with the severe angulation which can make them more at risk for getting hip dysplasia.  Another difference is that German dogs are bred for work (in fact, they can not be bred until they get rated for their work ability) whereas American dogs are primarily bred for show.  

3.  What you see in pictures is a dog being stacked (posed) to show off the angulation.  As I stated earlier the American's try to show off this feature as much as possible in their dogs.  The big difference is if you want strong hips or not.

Hope this helps, and if you have anymore questions, feel free to let me know.


Dawn