History of the Olderhills

The late Ann Butler was the original breeder and Olderhill was her kennel name. She was an incredible woman who drove tanks and trucks between South Africa and Egypt during the war. It was in Egypt that she saw the German army's german shepherd dogs and was so impressed by them that she decided to use those specific blood lines to breed her own german shepherd dogs after the war. She did this, and by continual line-breeding kept the original type of dog unchanged. Olderhill german shepherds have healthy flat backs and straight hind legs can be black, bi-coloured, or black and tan, and have short or long coats. Big, bulky dogs (males up to 70 kgs) with hearts and brains to match their size, the British Police and Prison Services soon realized the quality of the Olderhill GSDs and were keen to get hold of them. They allowed Ann (and later other breeders) to use their best performing Olderhill dogs in her breeding programme in return for pick-of-the-litters. This began a unique relationship which lasted 30 years and produced probably the best working dogs ever bred.

Breeding programmes in the past have shown that selecting for working ability over many years raises the percentage of puppies bred that are suitable for work from about 30 % (show stock) to more than 90%. So instead of three puppies, nine puppies out of a litter of ten will be suitable for training. Olderhill GSDs, selected for police work for 30 years, and other work long before that, have reached 100% suitability. All ten puppies will be easy to train and make great police dogs.

Another result of this selection is that the health of these dogs is far better than that of GSDs selected for unnatural shapes. Olderhill german shepherds have a natural 'square' shape. They are flat-backed and their hind legs straight, (unlike the show-ring german shepherd's sloped back and bent hind legs). Their spines are flexible like a cat’s, and so can easily take the pressure of high jumps and hard landings. People with show-ring GSDs call these flat, flexible backs 'soft' and judge them to be a fault. They want their dogs to have sloped, rigid backs and don't realize that this causes their dogs' spines to jar when they land after jumping. They just know that their dogs get damaged by jumping and so avoid doing it as much as possible. The Olderhill german shepherds don’t suffer from hip problems because they absorb their food well.  Their hind quarters are wide and powerful, and don’t degenerate after a few years because of pinched nerves in the spine. We believe this to be the german shepherd dog's worst medical problem and in our experience 90% of all GSDs are euthanased  because of this. We are not the only people to think so. Herr Raiser, a breed warden of the German Shepherd Dog Federation in Germany, (the S.V - Schäferhund Verein), also estimates that 90% of today's GSDs are handicapped because of pinched nerves in the spine and that hips play a minor role. He is so gloomy about the modern german shepherd's health that he suggests putting belgian shepherd (malinois) blood into the german shepherd dog breed to make it healthier! Some of Germany's police agree with him and have started re-trenching their german shepherds and replacing them with malinois. If they knew that the original, healthy, flat-backed german shepherd dogs still exist in the Olderhills, then they would probably be glad to use them because they are much bigger and braver than most belgian shepherds.

Despite being veteran crime-busters, Olderhill german shepherds make excellent family pets and are great with children. This is partly because they’ve always lived in with their police handlers and their families, and so have had to be very social. They’re stable, confident dogs who know when to attack and when not. They’re naturally protective towards their family without any training, and will follow members around like a shadow. (A few of our untrained Olderhill GSD puppies - some only 6 months old - have protected their families from burglars and armed hijackers. Many of our young puppies try to pull children out of swimming pools because they think that they're drowning!) With little training you can teach them anything. They’re keen to learn and you often only need to show them something once for them to catch on.