But dogs are not brands. Unlike Prada backpacks or Jimmy Choo shoes, demand for a certain breed can’t be relieved by merely ramping up production. Unscrupulous kennel owners and pet shops start producing puppies as fast as they can, even when the genetic mixes they’re creating aren’t healthy. Responsible American breeders soon noticed the dogs were showing an alarming rate of hip and eye problems, and they asked experts from Germany to tour kennels here and make recommendations for sorting out the genetic mess.

That intervention set things right, but the popularity of the breed remained. If there was a slight lull for German shepherds in the ’30s, it passed quickly when they were named the Army’s official mascots in World War II, with Rin Tin Tin as the spokesdog for the War Dog program; this, coupled with the hit ’50s television show “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin,” made German shepherds the ultimate American dog.

Demand for the breed, and the cruel practices that drove its supply, continued in the postwar years. “Success, like a chicken bone, is bad for dogs,” began a story in Life magazine called “Sad Degeneration of Our Dogs,” which ran in 1958. “The higher a dog rises in public favor, the more devastating its downfall. None has soared higher or fallen harder than the German shepherd."

Who is to blame? Is it von Stephanitz, for developing a breed of dog that turned out to be simply too well-liked? Is it Rin Tin Tin, for stirring up so much German shepherd passion? Or is it really just human nature?

We seem incapable of resisting the pull of popularity; what’s more, people are especially crazy — and often illogical and emotional — when it comes to dogs. And it’s not just German shepherds, either. You can always tell when “101 Dalmatians” has just been rereleased, or a funny talking Chihuahua is featured in a national advertising campaign; suddenly, every dog park is overrun with Dalmatians or Chihuahuas.

Sometimes these dogs have owners who have come to realize they were more in love with the dog when it was an image on screen than as a real, live member of the household. Or, in the case with German shepherds, they love them so much that they want to produce more of them, without much idea of how to do that well.

Bad breeding is bad for everyone, and in recent years the American Kennel Club, among other organizations, has done its best to discourage it, and to encourage adoption from shelters, which have, unfortunately, an oversupply of abandoned purebred dogs. It’s been a success, but it will never completely override our very human tendency to want those things — and animals — that have the shine of popularity.

The decision of the North Rhine-Westphalia police only looks like a failure for the breed. A little less popularity is the best thing that can happen to it. Perhaps, if other law enforcement agencies follow this lead, German shepherds will recede a bit from public view. They will make fewer appearances as stern search-and-rescue workers and soldier dogs and guide dogs. And we, the impressionable creatures we are, will be a little less determined to have a wonder dog of our own.