What colour is your hair?

This is a question for all the humans reading this – and please, stop for a minute and think about this before you answer.  What colour is your hair?  Red, Black, Blonde, Brown, Chestnut – or a mixture of what the lovely hair salon team give you?  No one ever questions you are a human because of your hair colour; right – so why… I ask you why, do people do that to our dogs?

German Shepherds have a multiple of differing colours, and coat lengths – and from having two White Shepherds I can’t count the number of times I got stopped and asked “What kind of dog do you have”?  Upon replying one is a German Shepherd, and the other is a Shepherd/Husky cross – I would get “I’ve never seen one before.  Is he Albino?  But he has dark eyes”?  Honesty, the amazement that people had about seeing a White Shepherd was actually really amusing.  So many people assumed there was something wrong with him, or that he would have a different temperament because he was a different colour.  And I will admit there were times it was frustrating getting the extra attention and people saying “He looks just like a Wolf”, to which I once did reply “He is!!”.  There was a quick back-step at this stage… but I wasn’t lying… His fathers name was Wolf, so I just ran with that.  But I honestly only did it once!!

Most people are more familiar with the Black and Tan colour German Shepherd, but there are multiple differing varieties of this.  We have Melanistic Black & Tan, or Faded Black & Tan.  Plus… there is the Red and Black – and lets not forget about the Black & Silver.  Gosh – there are so many varieties that go with the Black, it’s not surprising there is also a Pure Black.  One of the shiniest coats I have ever seen is on a pure Black Shepherd.  I personally love the majestic look that the Pure Black ones have.

One that I have only ever seen once, and it was when it was a puppy was the Panda colour.  Very unique – and I am sure any owners of these have been stopped on more than one occasion.  If you are fortunate enough to own one I would love to hear of some of the stories and situations that you been placed in due to their unique colourings.

Overall I think I found 17 different colours alone that a German Shepherd can be classified as – and this doesn’t include the long-coat/short-coat side of the story.  So as you can hopefully see, one “coat/size/colour” doesn’t fit all.

I would love to hear more about your beautiful babies colourings, and some of the comments you have received. After all, some of the most stunning GSD’s may not be able to be show ponies – but does that mean we love them any less?