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by Les The Kiwi Pauling on 20 August 2016 - 15:08
[susie] on 19 August 2016 - 19:08
● "Les (snip) The best looking German Shepherd Dog in my eyes is useless for breeding in case the dog doesn´t have working ability."
But I have a different interpretation/concept of "working ability" than you seem to. And definitely different than most fans of ZVV!
As for show-is-all people, their idea of "working" has, for at least the last 3 decades, consisted of the dog crouching behind and digging into the ground with its hind paws while the fore-paws wave in the air (we have had winners whose fore-pads MIGHT have actually touched the ground once or twice during each straight)
● "I really like good looking German Shepherd Dogs ( FCI 166 ), but even the best conformation for me is useless in case the dog isn´t able to work."
But you haven't stated what YOU define/regard as "work".
My blind pen-friend in Texas doesn't want a dog that reacts the way a gangster's dog does - after having to return 4 professionally trained guide dogs in a row (2 for their health problems, 2 for trying to walk her in front of speeding traffic) she bought a GSD from a rescue farm and trained it herself (with assistance from a sighted friend for the vehicle component). I had her write an article about it, and got it published as a serial in the British Breed Council's magazine several years ago. Late last year she had to at last have "Ellie" pts.
My sheep-farming friend in New York's Catskills: http://www.german-shepherdherding.com/boundary.htm has never mentioned that she needs her GSDs to see-off coyotes or coy-wolves or wolves or attack rustlers. But she did tell me about an SV sleeve-wearer sneeringly referring to her "Nicky"s sire (or was it grandsire) as a "wee sheepy boy" while the dog was tethered waiting for its SchH trial - whereupon the dog broke the tether and flattened the sleeve-wearer.
I have never needed protection. but the Mutz P > Jonny R line was my favourite among German dogs and my last 3 imports all had Jonny as sire or grandsire - the litter that was stuck in Britain had Marko Cellerland as one grandsire, Jonny R as the other grandsire. Isn't that indicatuve that I like BOTH character AND conformation?
If PROTECTION is what you mean by "work":
▪ Our first registered GSD had been 6th in Baby Puppy Stakes at the NZKC National (our equivalent of Crufts or Westminster) but then her breeder underwent a violent break-up, and Zacki was keen to bite anything (except me) in trousers - which included the jeans-wearing wife of the helicopter pilot behind the 4 acre property we were renting - she'd decided to lay a paper-trail across our property without asking us first, and we had just let Zacki out for a piddle when the woman raced in from the side of the property we couldn't see from the back door. While my wife was walking Zacki past the Whanganui City's lake, a car of louts stopped across the road and menaced Jeannie - Zacki instantly convinced them to get back IN their car and go away. When the replacement PD handler called in at a friend's place while we were there, he boasted about how well-trained his dog was, so I asked him whether he was willing to test his control by tethering his dog to a long chain and see how obedient his dog was while my Zacki was off-leash (she had worked out that the cop wasn't violent, nor was it HER property he was intruding on - the kids there used her as a "ladder" to reach apples in the tree we tethered her to while we visited). Whereupon Zacki worked out exactly how far the PD could reach in each direction and pretended she was on-heat - zooming towards him, spinning to present her vulva, then dancing away. She had him casting in the air before the cop agreed that maybe his dog wasn't PERFECTLY trained yet. Zacki was mated to a conveniently close relative (in-breeding on a son of UK&Ir.Ch. Kondor of Brittas (Ger.Ch, Condor vom Hohenstamm x Pia Wikingerblut) and a daughter of UK.Ch. Cito von der Meerwacht x a UK.Ch. & Ob.Ch. Terrie of Glenvoca daughter seemed like a damned good idea at the time, and gave a VERY pretty pedigree for our first attempt at breeding!) who also had a reputation for biting. From the litter, the local security guard bought Arko on the basis that he would be easy to train for protection; but he was wrong - Jeannie had worked her magic on the litter and they were all friendly. Because of HD, we changed bloodlines.
▪ Our 1973 Herrscher was everybody's friend, dancing out to meet judges (petrol pump hands admired him in our station wagon but never heard his sotto voce rumbling the whole time they were "touching OUR vehicle"). But in late 1976 a stranger opened the house-gate while Herrscher was the only dog loose - Herrscher threw himself off the 8ft high retaining wall and charged the gate (which the visitor got closed JUST in time) so hard that we felt it at the far end of the house. But Herrscher made no threats as soon as we we let the man in.
▪ Our 1980 Zum Jonny (superior-but-too-BIG brother of http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=2347672-lorelei-zacke by Cäsar vom Löhnerring x our Jonny R daughter) was owned by a local cop to protect his wife.
▪ His 1981 daughter Ciwa was a true alpha (Viva, a junior bitch by my 1984 Peter, came back for HD xrays & a spot of training and decided to snap at Ciwa near the top of the hillside - Ciwa chased her all the way down the section and into Viva's pen & sleeping box. When she eventually emerged there was no blood on anyone, but Viva never again challenged Ciwa!) - and almost impossible to keep in a pen. She worked out how to open the D-ring catch, so I had to move her to a pen with a sliding bolt, Which she worked out how to vibrate so that the bolt slid back and let the gate open. So I chained the gate to the pillar. So Ciwa used her muzzle to raise the gate until it fell off its hinge-pin. So I wired that hinge-ring to the horizontal part of the hinge-pin - and she was forced to stay put until we let her out. She was certainly protective - on one occasion opening the house gate and biting a rarely-seen friend walking up the driveway, on another occasion the paper girl silently opened the house gate and walked to the door that was open (because Ciwa and I were asleep in the lounge on a stinking hot day), thinking that because Ciwa had been sweet when I had previously let the girl in she would always be sweet. Ciwa instinctively charged the "intruder" before my brain or hers had switched on, and she wasn't quick enough to get her fang completely away from the girl's leg so left a deep scratch despite attemoting swerve past the girl.
▪ Her 1982 son German Graffiti was the first NZ pooch awarded a first placing by Walter Martin, who gave him VP1 Baby Dog, Best Dog Puppy, Best Baby in Show. But "Graff" never produced his last P1, so ended up in Singapore as a security dog, along with 2 pups from our Gauner vom Grundel daughter (TOLD you I liked the Jonny < Mutz line!) - the pro trainer there wrote that he was very pleased with all 3 pups I'd sent him.
▪ 1984's Nadja (by a Cäsar vom Löhnerring son x our Gauner G daughter) bit on 2 occasions. One was one of the children of our back neighbour, a wild mob who had been throwing one another's toys, jandals, etc at our dogs - and that afternoon Nadja cleared the fence & retaliated. The other was one of a trio of local boys who'd asked permission to play with our dogs. Ciwa and Nadja "welcomed" the first 2 as they came through the gate, but the third one suddenly turned and ran away - Nadja instinctively stopped him within 3 leaps before I had reacted. I had to keep the boys there with both bitches for at least 15 minutes so they could assure their parents that my dogs weren't vicious. It turned out that the boy had seen his own dog trotting down the public walkway so had run to shoo it home - but Nadja was too quick for him.
▪ 1984's Peter was a superb show dog until he escaped from his "minder" and had 4 teeth broken. He then went to a "lifestyle farmlet" (accessible by driving through the river when it was low, otherwise everything had to be carried across a swing-bridge) where he was allowed to run free with the sheep while the people were absent. A neighbour tried to steal some wood from the property but Peter "persuaded" him to LEAVE IT.
▪ 1990's Cwanto was a determined lad who would grab the sleeve of everyone he liked (which was almost everyone, including the surveyor who gave him BS.Cl.1) and pull the arm down to where the hand could rub his chest. His brother, Can-To, was sold to a newbie security guard. One night while Earle was training Can-To in the industrial area, Earle came across a group of thugs beating up a cop on the ground. Earle said a little prayer then sicced/sooled Can-To onto the thugs and HOPED that he wouldn't bite the cop. He didn't - one grateful cop!
▪ 2000's Offa decided one afternoon to nip the painter - but didn't attack. I assume she was "protecting" my ladder that he was using.
▪ A couple of daughters of bitches I had sold were used by the Trentham Police Kennels in their breeding programme.
NONE of those (except Can-To, and the trio trained in Singapore) was ever "attack trained" or "sleeve-trajned". So I consider that for at least THOSE individuals I retained enough of the breed's protective instinct.
● "Although I am German I am not that narrow minded to believe in IPO only, why do you think so?"
Not "think" - I SUSPECTED from your comments that you are a fan of DogSport. I don't yet have any evidence that my suspicion is wrong - but freely recognise that with so many people having poor communication skills in their own language I have to accept that people writing in their second or third language are sure to sometimes give an impression they hadn't intended.
What are your feelings about the new TT aka Wesenbeurteilung aka Wesensüberprüfung aka /Wesenstest fuer Junghunde from 9 to 13 months. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z8mEQ_qqjs for Körung, ZAP etc?
● "I believe in working abilities, drive, temperament, character - all of this ( for me ) more important than a well shaped head."
It wasn't me that thought that the heads of Philipp stock were "different" in some way. But when it comes to bloodlines I propose to incorporate in my future breeding I am always interested - as the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qk9o_ZeR7s song says, you got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. Which first requirrs me to be AWARE of what they are.
● "I am pretty aware that outside of Europe IPO trials are not that common, I only wanted to know if you take care of temperament, character, working ability, too, or if you are interested in conformation only."
Conformation is the only component I can attempt to assess from photos - and even photos are unreliable.
Assessing attitude + behaviour + character + determination need me to be in the presence of the pooch - although the weaker cases can be detected from outside the ring.
As I no longer travel, I have in the last 3 years SEEN only 2 shows. One was the 2013 all-breeds show where my Bea's sister completed her show champion title, and was held so close (less than 2 miles from my home) that it would have been rude not to attend. I had even entered Bea in it, seeing as I was going to be there (prior to that, the last all-breeds show I attended - but didn't compete in - was back in January 1976) - but in 2013 a traffic hold-up and a steward who brought the afternoon show forward to start at about 10am resulted in me not arriving until Bea's class was already in the ring. The other show was a 2014 GSD specialist show where basically I saw only 2 worthy males - one a very correct size (64.5cm) with excellent hips & elbows and the NZ record-holder for the number of times he's been graded Excellent - but with the low fertility typical of Ingo Frankengold descendants; the other a Philipp son who gets measured at heights from 66 to 68cm and has not yet had his hip & elbow scores published - a bad sign :-(.
● "Your answer was not very defined, talking about the past doesn´t explain anything about your decisions and criterias of selection today."
So you won't accept the extra "past" bits in THIS message? Because of my last retention (Offa, born 2000) developing pyometritis before she was able to give me a litter, I had to select a possible new brood. The stud who'd impressed me most with his calmness (I'd taken Offa to him before I gave up trying to get her pregnant; his owners had insisted that I let her loose, whereupon she had chased him to a corner and threatened murder without actually biting him, and he had made no attempt to defend himself, just standing there waiting patiently. I also like most of his shape) was Brojan Classic Devil. But all except one of his litters (it had 2 bitches shown once then disappear. Although their brother gained an obedience qualification and some Excellent gradings, no-one had used him and he was by then too old to use) had been from Ingo Frankengold daughters, Ingo being a dog you are now aware of my concerns about his effect on fertility - presumably due to a chromosome where the genes have been transposed and so when matings are done some fertilisations result in pups having 3 of some genes and only 1 of others, which results in the embryos dying at the gestation stage when they NEED the right amount of chemicals from the transposed genes.
Of 2 sisters due to be mated when I enquired, I chose the one with the larger first litter and HOPED that was a good omen. That pedigree is: http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=1325022-aubernee-bea-buhle-fur-lorelei in which I also had to accept other studs I'd rather avoid (for size, or cow-hocks, and so on).
The cow-hocks came out, the chest-depth came out - and as Bea has NOT had the "heats" she was due to have in July 2015, January & July 2016 (since I was rushed to hospital she has been running with a male who WOULD have been keen had she come on-heat in his presence) I guess that Ingo has "beaten me". And so I have been looking for alternatives.
As I live on a very steep section, and now have only 1 real leg left, an EASILY trained bitch is highly desirable.
As I will NOT be showing any more (no way do I wish to copy South Africa's "blade runner"!), I need a brood whose parents etc have LOTS of credentials to impress the newbies I need to buy the pups I choose to not retain - and to help me persuade some of the buyers to get involved in showing and/or training.
As there are currently only 2 GSD breeders within an hour of me - neither of whom I like as people, and rarely their pooches' characters & "fashionable" shape - and as the few people involved in DogSport are even further away and DON'T show their stock (most don't even have a web-site) and mostly sell their stock to paranoids or security firms, I therefore have no idea what aspects they are producing, I am left with choices between (1) the top NZKC trainer (3 of the 4 GSDs that are featured in our list of the current top 20 obedience competion pooches train privately with her) who I first became aware of in about 1968 when she was still a teenager but was already on to "finishing" her second obedience champion, or (2) looking for a pup from one of the few top show kennels who do not have Ingo in their pedigree - but they DO have plenty of cow-hocks, and ankles that crouch to produce a 40° croup and place their unpadded "in-step" right on the ground. You have presumably read Herr Meßler's report of the changes to show regulations made at the last SV meeting re SIZE and SPEED and HANDLING..
Unfortunately the obedience woman LIKES the "intelligence" she gets from Ingo. Her most recent litter was by his top son and from the bitch I would have preferred Philipp mated to - and already one of the pups from that N-litter has won its way out of the lowest class its trainer is eligible for. So the breeder has reason for liking him regardless of the fertility penalty.
by Hundmutter on 20 August 2016 - 15:08
* I no longer have the direct English translation of the first German Standard - it was on the laptop that blew a gasket - but Schwabacher provides one of the 1950 version, in which it demands "the back (is) straight and powerfully developed - not too long between the withers and the croup".
Malcolm, in comparing 'all' the Standards current in '91, says : in "The German Shepherd Dog: A Genetic History of the Breed.", (page 33) "The back - the area between withers and croup - is relatively short, suggesting that length stems from the body (prosternum to ischial tuberosity) rather than the back. In Britain many of the so-called Alsatian types are too long in the back with resultant weakness and sag." [It could be said that it was historically more the Alsatianists who relied on the inclusion of the loin to justify the extra length of their dogs !]
Frankly, IMO anything written since, by the US and UK Kennel Club, or the SV, or the FCI, ought not to have been in the market to include an extra 'bit' of the back that really belongs on that butcher's slab.
by susie on 20 August 2016 - 16:08
by Les The Kiwi Pauling on 21 August 2016 - 12:08
[Hundmutter] 20.8.2016 - 15:08
● "Les, you must have heard the argument about the loin and the topline a 1,000 times - I know I have been around (and around) that roundabout, in debates on many occasions over 'several' years !"
Teachers get used to casting their pearls before real swine....
I haven't had TIME for 1000 entries to the arguments of those who don't bother studying anatomy. But I am definitely pedantic and so insist on the CORRECT terms when I see confusingly ambiguous terms such as "back" used sloppily - it's an uphill battle, what with "Oh my aching back!" invariably referring to the lumbar spine, not the thoracic spine. The canine spine has 5 sections, which can be identified by the length & direction of the "spurs" growing from their bones. Using the anatomical names and then their "CORRECT" names as used by vets and EDUCATED doggy-people:
▪ cervical vertebrae = 7 bones of the neck
▪ thoracic vertebrae = 8 bones of the withers + 5 bones of the back
▪ lumbar vertebrae = 7 bones of the loin
▪ sacral vertebrae = 3 bones fused together as the sacrum within the pelvic girdle
▪ coccygeal vertebrae = about 20 bones of the tail.
http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/breed-standard/189651-dip-t11-anticlinal-vertebra-understanding-topline.html has the clearest text I found in about an hour, and almost the ONLY drawing whose artist bothered to draw the correct numbers of bones!
https://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0ahUKEwjF7M254dHOAhXIJZQKHbw6CiQQFghCMAc&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vtgsd.com%2Fpublicgsdfiles%2FThe-Illustrated-Standard-for-the-German-Shepherd-Dog.pdf&usg=AFQjCNH0XCR13QR_7DFwKPmbLmQ1i1ZDCg&cad=rja will give [LadyBossGSD] a LOT of reading. But a warning - excellent artist though Linda Shaw is, her vocabulary has been irredeemably corrupted by mixing with all the Canucks & Yanks in North America's show scene, and I have been unable to get her to accept a couple of linguistic corrections. In THAT article, in her last section, she typed "mid-back" but she actually mean the LOIN or lumbar section of the back-line.
Malcolm Willis was a huge boon to the GSD world.[Hundmutter], but like everyone except me (Ouch! Oh, alright, I will admit to being wrong once. Okay, yes, there was THAT time, too... Sssshh! And I DID curse that he dumpoed my Graff for not having the last P1 at 9-10 months old) he did make some mistakes. A couple in his first GSD book were 1: that he placed the alleles for bi-colour and for recessive self-black in the wrong gene series (his reasoning as to why they couldn't BOTH be alleles of the same gene was impeccable, but when DNA identification became possible it showed that he'd got them wrong), and 2: he stated that Vello zu den Sieben-Faulen (greatgrandsire of my obedience bitch) was KKl - but Vello never was... presumably because the SV was imposing size limits for KKl.1 and KKl.2.
[susie] on 20 August 2016 - 16:08
● "Just do a search on this board and you will find my thoughts about the "Temperament test", and you will find my thoughts about conformation, working ability, and even the latest SV ( Meßler ) reports."
An actual search SEED would have helped. Using "Temperament test" produced only 1 recent message by you, and THAT message said nothing that could be seen as an answer, your wording being something similar to "We'll see" and thus totally uninformative. The continued attempts did result in me discovering a Yank SV-ticket judge I'd never heard of and who is on the GSDCAmerica's board, and to whom I've written asking for an explanation of a strange-to-me term used in several of her stock's pedigrees.
But I've given up finding what you meant. Life is too short at my age - I'm already 7 months late in finishing an important complaint to a government minister, and about 3 weeks behind to the govt regarding dog control. It doesn't help that my right eye has, for the last month or more, been so bad that it can read no more than 4 letters of a word through the blur - which makes life difficult for my brain trying to reconcile the vastly different images from my left eye compared with my right eye.
by susie on 21 August 2016 - 13:08
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/community.read?post=849907-new-temperament-test
There was more, not able to find the posts right now...
by Hundmutter on 21 August 2016 - 15:08
Les, the dictionary definition of 'Loin' = "1.The part of a human being or quadruped on each side of the spinal column between the hip bone and the false ribs." Yeah, OK, and: "2. A cut of meat comprising this part of one or both sides of a carcass with the adjoining half of the vertabrae included but without the flank.", which may be true of the whole / half carcass, but no butcher I know of sells loin chops of sheep, cattle or pigs with chunks of backbone included in the price, nor is the vertabrae normally included in those illustrations of carved up side views of such, showing where the meat areas are located. And we never discuss the loin in the dog without the flank, surely ? As canine terminology was taken from livestock & horses in the first place, surely we can argue that what is sauce for the pig is source for the doggy ?
I was quoting the MW passage as illustration, not relying on it, only. Many, many other breeders and GSD specialists have said this about the loin, also. Actually I like the phrase Percy Elliott usually uses in describing back structure: "...the topline OVER the loin". But he otherwise says: back = withers into croup.
by Swarnendu on 21 August 2016 - 16:08
Will there be too much of an outcry if we just call it Lumbar Back? 
by Hundmutter on 22 August 2016 - 06:08
by kitkat3478 on 22 August 2016 - 13:08
by Les The Kiwi Pauling on 27 August 2016 - 05:08
[Swarnendu] 21.8.2016 - 16:08
● "Will there be too much of an outcry if we just call it Lumbar Back?"
You should KNOW that Thugees don't LIKE any outcry from their targets. They prefer each target to undergo a slow & painful but SILENT demise.
However, Although "Lumbar Back" is not objectionablke, it does NOTHING to help clarify the difference between the short 5-bones BACK of the canine spine and the long 7-bone Lumbar SPINE section.
Despite having the 1st lumbar bone under the /Thoracic\ bracket as if it were the 14th of the 13 thoracic bones (the last 5 of the actual 13 bones being the BACK).
the FIFTH diagram in
https://greatdanegnosis.wordpress.com/2016/03/15/the-long-and-the-short-of-it/
is the first CLEAR example I found this afternoon.
For those willing to join https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/The_GSD_Source/info
the 5th graphic in
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/The_GSD_Source/photos/albums/161016253
is the best-labelled, although it is based on the 50-years-ago Alsatian version of the GSD.
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