Stock – a top or outer coat about 1 ½’’ long with an undercoat of fine short hair so dense that it resists water.

A bi-color shepherd often has just just tan “socks’’ in tan, along with tan eyebrows, often some tan spots on the chest, and a small patch of tan under the tail, all on a base coat of black.

When the colors are mixed or scattered the result is called sable. Such coloration can include blond, silver, brass, red, tan and black in an endless variety of patterns. The blond and silver can highlight the dog’s musculature. The sable is our most popular color. A majority of our dogs are sable like Patton.

The all-black shepherd has become very popular. Iris and Karma are as beautiful as you will find in black. The coat absorbs so much light as to make the dog appear smaller and more slender than it actually is. A longhaired black is rare.

A variation of the black shepherd has a diluted color so as to have a gun-metal blue appearance. Such blue GSD’s are perfectly natural but very rare. A longhaired blue is the rarest of GSD’s that we deal in.

Plush – a cross between the stock and longhair, usually wavy with the same undercoat.

Many variations in German Shepherd dogs’ coats and coloration are natural and normal. A few have been produced by inbreeding of close relatives (mother to son; father to daughter) that invites recessive genes to express to the detriment of the breed. We never do such breeding. Examples of healthy variation are:

The traditional GSD breed standard, the black saddle. This is the stock coat or longhair shepherd which is mostly tan but with the large saddle or patch of black across its back. Chewy is a great example of this.