Shiloh Shepherds??

[Mrs. Strut10]

Been thinking about getting a dog for the family/kiddos. Want it to be kid friendly but also a watch dog. Heard Shiloh Shepherds were good dogs. Anyone familiar with them??

[Doe-ee]

Any shepherd is at the top of my list. From what I've read about shiloh's is that they are very family friendly and of course intelligent enough to do just about anything they're trained for. Sounds like a great choice to me.

[M00N]

Shiloh Shepherds were originally German Shepherds that had a breeder split from the AKC breeding standards in an attempt to breed out some really bad genetics that are getting into the AKC German Shepherd lines. A lot of AKC German Shepherd lines these days are riddled with hip problems and temperment problems flaring up everywhere, even some of the top AKC German Shepherd lines are having issues with this in some way.

What the original Shiloh Shepherd breeder attempted to do was use selective breeding to bring back the original German Shepherd in a sense. They tried to use selective breeding to get a gene pool of dogs that weren't riddled with hip problems and temperment problems. The Shiloh Shepherds are bred specifically to be "gentle giants". They were selective and picked dogs that had good hips, were extremely intelligent, and larger in size than a normal German Shepherd and bred many litters and generations in order to try to lock these features into the breed.

Shiloh Shepherds are pretty good dogs when you get a "true" Shiloh Shepherd. They are very simliar to German Shepherds, but in my opinion much more reliable on being healthy and more naturally stable tempered than a German Shepherd is. The biggest problem with Shiloh Shepherds is there are a lot of fraud breeders out there advertising selling "Shiloh Shepherds" when they are just someone with a German Shepherd who is too big for the AKC standard or a mixed German Shepherd trying to make extra money off the dogs.

True Shiloh Shepherd breeders are registered and active with the ISSR and is a member of the SSDCA. I highly recommend if you want a "true" Shiloh Shepherd to only purchase a puppy from a breeder on the ISSR breeder list. You will find that it may be a long wait to get a puppy from a "true" Shiloh Shepherd breeder as most are quite pricey, very picky on what families can take home one of their puppies, and have rather large waiting lists.

I'm currently the owner of a German Shepherd from an AKC show line who is riddled with genetic problems and if I was to ever buy another dog after she passes away someday it'd probably be a Shiloh Shepherd just because it's so hard these days to get a good German Shepherd that doesn't have some sort of temperment issues or health problems and I'm quite disappointed of the route the AKC is allowing German Shepherd breeders to go with their gene pools these days.

So, if you like German Shepherds and don't mind a dog that is a bit bigger and possibly requires a bit more grooming than a normal German Shepherd then you'd probably enjoy owning a "true" Shiloh Shepherd. They still, just like German Shepherds require a dedicated owner willing to stimulate, train, and socialize them in order to bring out the true beauty in the breed, though.