Quote Originally Posted by dsirkle View Post
German Shepherds have been around for centuries with the same basic drives and instinct but the standards used today were only around for about a century. You can see photos of dogs referred to as German Shepherds from the mid 1800's but they differ greatly in appearance from the dogs of today. If my memory serves me correctly, a German military guy from the Kaiser Wilhelm era drew up the current standard. The general appearance of most breeds constantly evolves as change is not preventable. Everything that you said is essentially correct, I am just being a nitpicker.
And also on that note, the standards for breeding the GSD in Europe are different than the American version. So much so, I think they will begin to look startingly different in the future. My future dog will hopefully be the black color phase, or the white. I love the classic black and sable, but you don't see very many pure blacks or whites.