Strongheart the Dog: Strongheart the Dog. Actor: White Fang. Strongheart, the German shepherd who was a canine superstar of American cinema, was born and raised in Imperial Germany, where he was trained to be a police dog and assigned to the German military during World War I. Called "Etzel von Oringer," the German shepherd was born on October 1, 1917, descended from a carefully bred line. Trained as an attack dog, the 125-pound...