History of the Blue Bay Shepherd
from Breed Founder Vicki Spencer
The Blue Bay Shepherd is a new breed in progress that I have been working on for over 20 years. The first litters were finally produced in March 2011. Some of the foundation animals are from European German Shepherds imported from a top breeder in France with bloodlines from Germany and Holland as well. They are a color known as “Blue” and very hard to find in the shepherd. It has been my dream for many years to develop a dog that would have the willingness to please, the loyal nature and trainability of a well-bred German shepherd with the extremely good health, loving nature and awesome beauty of their wolf ancestry. That has proven to be very difficult and at times a seemingly impossible thing to accomplish because finding just the right dog has not been easy. I always knew the German shepherd had most of what I wanted.
While I love the look of the old style German shepherd like the, Rin Tin Tin of the 1950’s TV
series, it had been impossible for me to find that look. When I ran across the blue color in the wolf dog I knew then that that was what I needed to produce the look I wanted. A “Blue” German shepherd would solve my problem with the dark eyes. The blue coated animals always seemed to have lighter eyes so when and if I was able to find one I would only have to work on bringing the ear size back down in proportion to the head. However the “Blue” German shepherd also proved extremely hard to find. I had one back in the 70’s so I knew the blue existed. I just could not seem to find another one anywhere. The only blues I could find were not solids; they developed a very distinct saddle and had almost completely lost the look of the blue by a year old.
Searching for the right look...
After a while I had pretty much given up on finding a blue German shepherd and just went on breeding my blue colored wolf dogs. I’m sure everyone knows how it goes when you quit trying so hard sometimes things just happen. One day I received an
email from a breeder in France who bred Altdeustsche Schaferhund’s. They attached their website address to the bottom of the email. I clicked on their site and there they were, the most beautiful Blue German Shepherds I had ever seen! The problem was being able to find a way I could cross the shepherd with dogs of more recent wolf heritage WITHOUT producing the traits that I personally found to be unappealing with some of today’s German Shepherds, such as, the very dark eyes and larger ears. At the same time there was something about a lot of wolf type dogs that I did not like either and that is their shy and sometimes very timid nature with humans. Crossing a dog with traceable wolf heritage back to a shepherd is not by any means something new that has not been done many times before. Today there are some wonderful breeds that have been created from this cross. However it seemed like the German
shepherd had dominated the looks of almost every cross I had previously seen. As many people know the German shepherd has traceable wolf heritage and in some of the old studbooks the wolf was originally used in the development of the breed, as we know it today.
The perfect foundation GSDs:
Within a year I got 2 pups a male and female. I must say I was extremely surprised to find everything I was looking for in those 2 pups. I consider myself very fortunate to find such a dedicated breeder without them I would have never been able to get started on this
new breed. These 2 pups not only had the color, their ears were not oversized and their temperament was everything I could have hoped for. They both have very soft temperaments and sweet personalities more like that of a collie or golden retriever, great for a family pet.
So my concern about the possibility of having the aggressive temperament that some GSD’s
have was no longer a concern . Jordan & Passion absolutely love everyone they meet.
This type of temperament is great because my vision for the Blue bay Shepherd was to create just a really good companion and family pet that would be safe with all people.
Since the wolf dogs I have had over the last 30 years have always displayed nothing but a sweet
nature and have never shown any protective or aggressive tendencies I did not want to add that with the German shepherd.
Developing the breed:
So I have this year (2011) the first foundation litters of what I intend to develop as the
Blue Bay Shepherd, just a good pet and true companion dog with “out of this world” beauty. They will not carry the stigma of the name “wolf” ,wolf dog” or wolf hybrid” since one of the parents is a full German Shepherd and the other parent is 5 generations away from any pure wolf in their line. This makes the first Blue Bays F-6. Within the next year or two I will be breeding Blue Bay to Blue Bay. I have been very selective about the animals that I chose for this first breeding. I used animals that I have line bred for quite some time specifically for looks and temperament and I know their backgrounds well. I have already chosen the other lines
that I will be introducing into the further development of the breed although I can say I have come closer to exactly what I want the Blue bay to be in these first pups than I ever imagined I
would. There will be NO wolves added in the development of this breed. I will be creating a standard for what all Blue bays should ideally be. I hope to be on target with that standard
by keeping in touch with all the new owners as their pups grow. This way I will know if they are
turning out as planned and can work on continually improving the breed as
it develops with the help of other dedicated people and the daily blessings of God.
For more information Contact Vicki at 561-248-4610