Quotes taken from article printed  in the June 1960 GSDCA Review

By Maureen Yentzen

 "White German Shepherd Dogs have always existed in the breed, as they are mentioned in its earliest histories. They are not to be confused with albinos, as the true albino carries pink eyes and nose, of course, while many white German Shepherds Dogs have dark eyes and black noses. Nevertheless, the whites have never been considered desirable and certainly no serious breeders have ever sought deliberately to breed this color."

"I have probably not seen more than a dozen whites, yet every one of them carried a much too short tail, in which the last vertebrae was some inches above the hock joint, rather than properly reaching to the back joint at least, as the Standard calls for. White German Shepherd Dogs appear in "dilute" pedigrees also, and perhaps are the causes of dilution. [snipped] We are frank to admit that we do not completely understand how whites function in German Shepherd Dogs as we have conflicting evidence on them."

"I would say that a black which carries a white recessive would most likely show this by white toes and nails or a large white blaze on chest, or both. White toes with their accompanying white nails are certainly undesirable in a black, (or in any other color) and any serious breeder who wishes to be sure of maintaining pigment, whether in agouti, pattern, or self color, will discard these puppies. The fact that the white toes "disappear" by later turning silver does not alter the fact that the pup was born with white toes, and it does not alter the fact that the white toes are a fairly reliable indication of the existence of a gene for paling, for dilution, or even for a white factor. And, of course, the light nails will remain light, even though the white toes turn silver or cream."

"It is only reasonable to add in the interests of truth that the great majority of "normal colored" dogs which figure in dilute pedigrees are not black and rich tans but black and silvers and black and creams. These varieties of the pattern are so very popular in some quarters that they have been bred from extensively with little attention to gradual loss of pigment in their descendants. There is a great deal of evidence to prove that they are responsible for much of the dilution and carry a recessive gene for dilution which when coupled up with the same recessive from a dog of similar coloring, produces the "blue" version of the black and tan."

"We believe that many have wondered why the new Standard explicitly demands a black nose. As the blues have grey noses and the few surviving livers have brown noses, we think the reason is clear. It is the one means to bar off-colors in the show ring. If they are not allowed to be shown, they will not be bred from by serious breeders. There is no more reason to allow a German Shepherd Dog with a grey or brown nose in the ring, than to allow a white German Shepherd Dog with a black nose, in our opinion. The off-colors are due to recessive genes, and they could become so strongly entrenched in the various bloodlines that an average of 25% of every litter could be off-color."

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