actually, white shepherds arent rare at all...they r very common! there are approx. 5000 registered in akc every year and it is the second most common colour shepherd to be registered every year! and there are all those shepherd colours too....like black and gold, bi colour, sable, blue, liver, black...etc...
i had a white shepherd, he was a great dog! his name was polar, but he got a bone disease and had to be put down
we know the (former) breeders personally...their dogs are regular black and gold dogs, so u would think that they would atleast have some black and gold pups, but they had all white litters every time!