Obie, those dogs are gorgeous!
For me, I've never had a puppy, but I've also never been around puppies ever. The puppy phase is cute, but the German Shepherds I know are my family-friends' full grown shepherds who are the most loyal, smart, well behaved dogs. I'm actually looking forward to adulthood more than the puppy stage, and I'm really excited to start training him! And dear god does he need it. 90% of the time, he's great, VERY focused on me, he always looks at me when we walk anywhere, he follows me without having to be called, but for the last two hours he has been on a rampage! I think he got really excited about SOMETHING, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what. I tried taking him for a walk to get the energy out, but he didn't want to do that. I threw the ball a bunch, but that wasn't helping. I finally decided to try to just ignore him (Something I haven't ever tried before lol) and low and behold, five minutes later he's curled up at my feet (On my rudder pedals, of course, so I can't fly! lol) and being a sweetheart again. I think I've already spoiled him too much, and I need to start paying less attention to him so he doesn't feel like he runs the house.
On the subject of the crate, we got one today. I figure if we want him to feel at home in a crate, we should get one that he will use his whole life, so we got one rated for a dog up to 110lbs (His dad's size). We went with the all metal, and put it in his own part of the house, so he can go there and be away from the activity if he feels like it, and before I could even finish putting it together he ran in there and started playing. I guess he likes it!