Shepherds are a truly awesome breed. Gentle as kittens with your children, vicious attackers with bad guys. And that is if you don't bother training them, and just socialize them nicely as puppies and treat them as a family member. A trained shepherd is a force to be reckoned with.

The hip dysplasia is a bummer. My first shepherd had it bad by eight years old, and she lived to be 13. We used chondritin and glucosamine, which seemed to help, and aspirin when it got really bad. Our second shepherd, who is now ten, comes from a bloodline of dogs selected for good hips and she is doing fabulously well. If you get a shepherd (and you should) pay the extra money or whatever it takes to get one with a documented bloodline of sound hips.