(Linda w/ Dennie, Elsa, Colorado & Bonnie) Helping to preserve the DDR (East German) dog, has become a very important part of my life. I would like to share with you just how and why the DDR dog has won my heart. I have been rehabilitating and training dogs for 25 years. The first "problem dog" was sent to me when I was 18. About 11 years ago, I decided to look for a quality dog, one I could train and show for my own pleasure. The German Shepherd dog always had impressed me, so the search started. Having a good eye for animals, I knew what I wanted, but quickly became more and more discouraged with what I was finding. I didn't take long to knock the American show dog off the list, for to me the physical structure and the character trait of lack of courage were not very appealing. I knew I wanted a dog with versatility-one that could be trained in different areas, such as TDI (Therapy Dog International) and protection! The German-bred dogs were the ones to look at, but still, something wasn't right. In some cases the drive was too high, even when we weren't working. In addition, I still had a certain quality of bone structure and overall character traits that I was looking for. After a long search, I was beginning to think the dog I had pictured in my mind had been lost due to changes in breeding programs over the years. Then one night while reading the Want Ads, I came across an ad that caught my eye. It was the first time I had heard a DDR shepherd dog ever mentioned. The father was a DDR Sch III, and the mother, a West German Sch I, farm-raised and bred for quality, companionship, and temperament. I will never forget the dark, rainy night I drove out to western Massachusetts to look at the dogs. My search was over! The adults had that unmistakably friendly eye as well as the strong bone and head structure I had been looking for. This is where my beloved "Bonnie" picked me out. Little did I know then how much she would change my life! She was her father's daughter in every way, a masculine female with a sound temperament. She went on to teach me the characteristics so common to the DDR dog: an ideal companion dog for inside the house, as well as a great traveling companion, excited about activities such as camping, mountain climbing, etc. (continued right) What is a ddr German Shepherd? German Shepherd Dog of the former East Germany, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik or "DDR" (1949-1990). The DDR was a political, social, economic, and geographic entity that was physically solidified with the tragically oppressive construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, and which began its political and physical dissolution with the history-making and liberating fall of that barrier on November 9, 1989. Just as the geo-political entity formerly known as the "DDR" no longer exists today, the "DDR German Shepherd Dog" is a historical relic of a bygone time and place, and it no longer exists today. Rather, the generations of true "DDR" bloodlines are limited to a span of roughly four decades of breeding and development in the former East Germany. These bloodlines may be found in the third, fourth, and further generations back in the pedigrees of working, sporting, and companion dogs found around the world today. These modern representatives of the German Shepherd Dog breed, with a genetic heritage in the former DDR bloodlines, have their true provenance determined by the place of their actual birth.