I really hate to be a know it all, but keeshonden are actually from holland...
In Dutch, "kees" is a nick name for Cornelius deguysler who was the head of a political party. The dutch people's party, I think and he had a keeshond as his constant companion.
then, william of orange came along and conqurered and wiped out that political group and nearly eradicated all traces of the keeshond.
Then, a nice lady in england took a fancy to them and brought them to england where there were known as over weight pomeranians.
The pom fanciers there took offense, so the name was changed to "keeshond" which is what it remains today.
In Holland, a "keeshond" is any type of spitz dog and can come in a bazillion colors: white, red, pibald, chocolate... where as here in the states its only wolf sable.
Anyway, you're probably confusing keeshonden with the "wolf spitz" and they are actually different breeds.
If you go to the AKC site you can see that teh German Wolf Spitz is applying for "breed ship" or whatever its called as a separate breed from the keeshond.
Now, they were barge dogs which traveled up and down the Rhine River, which is how the breed got to Germany.
That's also what you could be thinking.