Foundation Principles of Max von Stephanitz
"The ideal of the Society was to develop Police trial Champions
out of Exhibition Champions, our shepherd dog therefore, was
further developed by dog lovers as a working dog. The Standard
by which he would be judged and approved was this, namely:–
utility is the true criterion of Beauty. Therefore our dogs exhibit
everywhere to-day (in a fittingly developed frame, and never as
the caricatures of Nature, the greatest of all teachers) a build of
body, compacted and designed for the highest possible
efficiency, spare and powerful, with wonderfully wellproportioned
lines which immediately attract the connoisseur,
who soon recognizes that it imparts to its owner a swift, easy
gait, a capacity for quick turning and powers of endurance."