Actually, ShepherdLover.

The German Shepherd is really a new breed of Alsatians, came from the same place, a small town called Alsas on the french german line. They where a much bigger breed of dog. They where bred down (smaller) in the past 100 years.

My grand dad bred Alsatians, in England.
In some dog breed books they will have both the German Shepherd & the Alsatian.

I would think before they had "police dogs" they had war dogs, an early ancecter of working dogs (in any type of form).
But anyways.