The breed has a dense weather proof coat and is an EXTREMELY heavy shedder, doing so only once a year but it lasts for 365 days.
Of the herding dog group, GSD's are natural guard dogs, and protective of family and property without the need for specialized training. They ARE NOT naturally agressive, but proper socialization is necessary. Once accepted by a GSD your are his friend for life, they are extremely loyal and wonderful with children.
German Shepherd Dogs are the 3rd most popular dog breed in America.
GSD's must be with their families or their temperament can become unstable. They are NOT yard dogs.
Let me start out by saying that up until getting
Cooper, I was
strictly a cat person. Stereotypical girl
thing I know, but cats are easy. You
feed them, water them, clean the litter
box, open the door to let them in and out, and pet them on the
rare occasion they
want your attention.
In 2001 my daughter learned
of someone who was
trying to find a new home for their puppy, a 10 month old German
Shepherd Dog. She
begged me for a straight week, night and
day about this dog. The
only kind of dog
I ever wanted was a GSD, so if it had been any other breed I would not
have given in to her. They didn’t really tell me a
lot about
the dog and I didn’t
know enough to ask
any questions.
So the husband shows up, jumps out of his van, hands me dog bowls, a bag of food, toys, AKC papers and a leash. He pats Cooper on the head, tells me thank you and leaves. There I am standing on the street with a dog that was HUGE thinking "10 month old puppy?!?" (remember I’m a cat person)
Luckily I had a fenced in backyard
and that is where he
stayed for 3 days, leash still 
attached.
He would growl whenever we tried to get near him. Brittany was the one he
warmed up to first,
and things started to get easier from there, finally. Me,
I was busy researching how to be a good
dog owner.
He knew a little obedience so
Brittany began working with
him, playing with him and in general just building his trust in us. After a couple of months
we were all bonded
well enough and his true self started to emerge.
Cooper was bursting with ENDLESS
energy and he definately had the GSD smarts.
We also noticed he was obsessive in the truest
meaning of obsessive compulsive,
when it came to playing ball as well.
He
was driving us CRAZY! 
While attending the SPCA annual pet fair in August 2002, I watched a demonstration by a K9 search and rescue team. The light came on…Cooper needed a job! I attended one of their trainings, where Cooper was evaluated by them and determined to be too shy for the work. Not to be deterred I set out to improve his socialization and began to train him myself with the search commands he would need to learn. 5 months later I found a team that did offer us membership.
Our training schedule was intense. We trained weekly for
years learning air scent
search and cadaver search on both land and water. I continued
with
his socialization training, o
bedience training and we enrolled in an
agility
class. He totally
loved the “game” as
SAR people call it. I think his favorite
activity was riding on
the front of the speed boats the water rescue teams used to
get us to water
search areas. He
would stand on the
front of the boat nose high in the air with the boat speeding and
bouncing along. I
think the boat operator liked that he
liked it too.
In 2006 we got out of the SAR business to concentrate on other activities. Now he enjoys a life of leisure and regular activities of hiking, backpacking, patrolling the yard during the day and the inside of the house at night (aahh!), and just hanging on the porch with his girl Sophie. He is still obsessive about playing ball.
Training - Highline
Water Search PPL Lake
Training - Cadaver, wilderness
Training - Cadaver, Urban rubble pile