68W has given you a basic outline, this is not something to enter into lightly.
For the dog, and for you.
Here are my $0.02 and also as a novice, that has owned a GSD for 51 years:
How much time can/will you be able to spend with the dog EVERY day?
Are you in for what could possibly be a 15+year commitment?
Have you been around a "hard" dog, and do you realize the responsibilities you assume with ownership?
Read everything you can, from as many places (that are worth a shit) and sources.
Regarding a specific dog:
For a nothing special pup, you could spend $3k, and remember, puppies are a crapshoot. Parents matter, further away means shit.
Never get in a hurry.
Never get in a hurry.
A pink papered 2 y/o import with at least an IPO 1 title could cost you $10k, by the time the dog gets here. Air fair and a crate from Stuttgart ran me 1500 Euros last year, so there's that.
One video really shows only what the seller wants to highlight, won't show any problems. Ask to see MANY videos. People videoe everything today, there are really no excuses.
Never send monies to Russia, Egypt, Serbia, Timbuktu. You will never see it again.
If you buy from someone who does this as their principle source of income, understand where they are coming from, good and bad.
Never get in a hurry.
It's the training you will pay for. I don't do my own dentistry, a pro trainer can be amazing and worth his or her weight.
Working-lines, show-lines blur, it's the specific dog that you are interested in. A buddy in the next town just got a new unit, ****er won't bite. They are out a lot.
Why would one endure this hi-dee-ho?
A quality GSD can easily give you a decade of complete and total devotion.
A quality GSD is, to my mind, hard to match, when checking all of the boxes.
A quality GSD is an incredible asset to any home/business/security interest that understands the dog's limits/capabilities.
Speak with members of a local group, the internet allows you to see as many dogs an hour, would have been a week in a rental car just 15 years ago.
You can get a good dog in the U.S., you can get a good dog from Germany. I like my dogs pink papered, there are 4 pages, know what the stamps mean, like this:
pinkpapers.jpg
Here's a link:
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com
Read this:
http://www.vonlotta.com/definitions.html
Look at this, Susie knows her shit, some people don't like her, she is very strict, and she is correct 99% of the time:
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/comm...pink-paper-gsd
If a titled dog, scores in the mid to high 90s.
ZW score should be as low as possible. 100 is meh, my #1 male is 74, my bitch is 78. But never forget that little prankster called genetics.
My dogs are with me 20 hours a day. Just the way it is.
My latest male was a new kitchen remodel. Woof.
My latest bitch was basically two new baths. Woof. Woof.
I make their dinner myself, every night. I'm not talking canned paste. Tonight beef kidneys, last night beef hearts, tomorrow chicken. I cook their dinners before we go out.
Their coats are amazing.
Twice in the last month, savory folks approaching my vehicle (bums, panhandling) were turned around from 25 yards away. Sort of like a quick 20 from a 240B.
I never worry about my wife or my dot. No, I always worry, I just worry a lot less.
Op, Good Luck.
Remember, a GSD is, in many ways, as large a responsibility as the ownership of a firearm.
But the rewards can be indescribable.
Oh yeah, pics:
My #1 male, IPO I, KKL, son of Schumann von Tronje
6s9a4113.jpg
Terrible pic of my IPO 3 male
DSC_0050.jpg
One of my males airing it out
DSC_0159.jpg
An IPO II bitch saying no
DSC_0513.jpg
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