Personalities can vary from calm and watchful/observant to energetic. Enjoy participating in dog sports such as agility, tracking, flyball, and competitive obedience. Eager to learn and respond well to reward-based training. May be aloof or timid around strangers and may require careful socialization to prevent or reduce fear-based defensive behaviors.

The White Swiss Shepherd shares the same ancestry with the German Shepherd, which was developed with an interest in working ability rather than color by Max von Stephanitz in the early 1900s to standardize local herding dogs. In 1968, white coloring was made a disqualifying fault in the German Shepherd breed standard, and so in the 1970’s, white dogs were imported into Switzerland, and efforts were undertaken to preserve the breed. These dogs have since been bred for several generations, leading to the White Swiss Shepherd of today. The breed was accepted in the FCI in 2003 as the Berger Blanc Suisse, and is accepted by the UKC under the name of the White Shepherd.