Serious Breeders - Page 14

Bavarian Wagon, you get warned for the way you say things and you know that through the PM's I have sent you. Also you can respond all you want but drop the cussing and I'm the best attitude. You seem to have an issue with this site and the members but you keep coming here, you would get a better response if you dropped the attitude and treated members with some respect.

Stop putting this site and the members down or you can go somewhere that allows that kind of manner......WE DON'T!!!!! I can only say this to you so many times before you get banned unless that's what you are hoping for?????
Just let me know and I can help you right out.

simple question turned into such flamed discussion.
i'm new on this board but old enough to have 40+ years experience to own and handle german shepherds.
to answer an original question, from my personal experience i would say - serious breeder is a breeder, who's doing this because personal devotion to the breed and not for purpose to gain monetary reward.

Serious Breeders ?? That is the problem with this thread .... you are looking to the dogs instead of the breeder. First and foremost .. the GS is the most all round utility dog. Meaning it can do many tasks. can it man trail yes... but not to the level of a bloodhound. Can it protect , yes , scent discriminate yes , hunt yes , herd yes, draft / pull sleds yes , search & rescue yes , do sport work yes... etc etc. . For the novice .. that means each of those realms requires similar yet at the same time different specific behavioral traits which are selected for . So , if you want a GS for search and rescue .. you seek out those GS with those traits that enable to do the work . Ditto for the other avenues . That being said not all GS are the 1 for everything in life dog. If you selectively breed fo those traits that lend to high sport competition ,they are different than what you would select for something else. Same for herding .. they are not what you woild look for in a dog meant for scent or explosive detection . That simple.

BTW , aakay from this point of view has made a valid comment. We see divergence in the malinois too. Educated and experienced people see a big .. a BIG Difference in the malinois for sport bred compared to those for LE bred !! Same situation , different dog . So what is the big dispute and arguing all about. Many sport dogs are not up to doing LE and LE dogs do not ness. make the best sport dogs. That is fact .. they both are for people's purposes neither good , nor bad.. As stated the sleective breeding is different. Doesn't make 1 dog more or less , better or worse than the other ! They are simply different.

So serious breeder ? You cannot put the expectation of one endeavor on a breeder and companre that to another endeavor for another breeder. What I personally have observed .. if a GS cannot do 'true' protection work, the dog is looked down upon , it's useless . THIS IS NOT SO ! You cannot hold the breeder of herding GS to that of say of LE. IMOp, it is only prudent to compare a herding GS breeder to another GS breeder to establish if the genetics are amenable to that avenue . Comparing apples to oranges is foolish .

My other comment is .. that I tell you IMOp , that as of this writing.. there is but a handful of people on this thread that have the most comprehensive understanding of the GS. Most people here have a few years of experience or have undertaken a certain path and now they know eveything. The fact of the matter is that if you are going to understand the GS , you have to strip the environment / learned experience apart from the genetics of the dog . Just about a handful , IMOp from reading posts , I would say a handful , currently on this PDB , may have the capability of doing that . I would say with all the arguing , a few ,can adequately evaluate a GS and dicuss the pure genetic makeup and temeperament of an individual GS. Most people have no idea what the criteria , the genetic traits , the tasks needed to be able to perform for both LE , or high end sport dog and other endeavors . I say this because if they realize that they are both different animals - a horse of a different color ~ Then they would know that it is unrerasonable to even put the two endeavors in the same conversation.

Sport... please give me a break . Skinner taught pigeoens in the 1950's to play ping pong. No learning methodology has changes since then ... if you can teach a bird .. it is not so hard to treach a dog a sport that it has been selectively bred for. Sport is no ore or less important than any other endeavor . LE GS are not for the average , even average experienced person. Most often , in general description - it's to much dog.

A serious breeder puts foremost a PLAn / PROGRAM with a speciific goal that he needs to accomplish to produce the dog for the venue and it's future purpose , without consideration of his pockets first. To illustrate.. do those that breed for show line.. which it is a given now a day , that the show line are useless for real tue to life protection [ in general] , are they are not serious breeders ? Wit the top SL being sold for $1 million , I can assure you that even those dogs fall short of what many people want as a selcvtively bred GS but I assure you all , that those people , who I have met are Serious* , very very intensely serious breeders !!

Best to consider the person breeding and his/her program and then validate that program by learninghow to evaluate a GS . Concern yourself whether that individual dog has the genetic make up for what you seek it for in life. THAT should be your concdern .. to educate yourself to understand ehat you need and if that lineage , that spoke cific puppy /dog has the potetntial and for what enedeavor you both take.

Centurian, you're somewhat contradictory in your own view on the breed. first you stated, GSD are "all round utility dog" but then you start splitting single breed into different categories of dogs, based on different traits, sort of like this is different breeds for different purposes.
to me it seems like wrong approach.

Nothing wrong in that approach.

Show/sports/LE are different breeds, the split is already there, they don't even look the same.

No dedicated serious show/sports breeder would want to mix his line with a sports/show dog to try to create an all-rounder, because GSD was never the best in any of the tasks it can do, even when that was the single task that particular dog can do, and trying to incorporate more traits (which will never be required from the dog anyway) further complicates the principal goal of the breeder.

We can always dream to produce a master of all trades, though...

actually you're wrong.
"master of all trades" was main target, envisioned during an establishment of german shepherd dog as specific dog breed.
for pretty much, up to 60s, the breed did comply with it purpose. and this qualities did bring GSD to the top of popularity.
unfortunately what brings GSD to the top, was also turned to be main cause of present degradation of the breed.

Actually you're right. It was pretty much the trend upto the 60s, not master in anything, but among top 5 in everything.

But, 60s were a long time ago, isn't it.

Only javir after that, but none of his descendants were anywhere successful as him.

He also wasn't that much in demand as a stud. Shows the preferences of todays "serious" breeders.

i wouldn't put all the blame on breeders, rather on the preferences of general public.
after all, breeders in mass just cater what in demand, to earn piece of butter to their daily bread.

the highest point in development of breed was reached somewhere from 30s to 40s, when nearly all german population did volunteered in breeding program, sponsored by government and military. after the war, there were two Germany and both inherited same stock, but moved in very sundry directions of breed development.
after fall of Berlin wall these differences disappeared due to specifics east german dogs, which do not fit into successful profile of commercialized dog breeding industry. so now, instead of well balanced, able to work dogs, the breeding took two main extremes - an oversized lap dogs and hypernated to nearly hysterical level sport dogs.

Valk
I didn't mean ' all round ' as in an all-rounded individual . I meant all round in the sense that the breed , can be used for multiple disciplines : scent detetection work , protection work , herding , retireving, therapy/ assistance , drafting sled, earch and rescue.

In that sense , the behavioral traits that lead to excelled performance by an individual GS in each endeavor are in diametiic opposition from one endavor to another endeavor. As I often wrote , wrote that I want as traits in search and rescue are direly diametrically opposite as those traits that I desire for police apprehension. You can't have it both ways and and think a GS always can be master of many endeavors at the same time . The traits that I want for personal protection are different than what I want for search and rescue or I want for herding . And so on. Although , there is a false excpetion : in police work some dogs can do apprehension and and scent/ narcotic detection . but that is not so great a feat because, if you truly understnad a GS , then you would know that the GS is , by nature and makeup , 90% nose !! A dog , to repeat is 90% nose .

So , in essecne there was no ' master of all trades' in an individual dog. Not to mention , being able to do something does not make you a master. To illustrate, a GS can man trail , but is not a ' master' at it. Because if you want the best , the dog that is genetically preprogrammed for that , that will out perform a shepherd.. then you go to a blue tick bloodhound. The bloodhound is the master in terms or man trailing . Ditto for retrieving....you go to a retriever. So your use of the word master is misleading. And this is the faulty mentality of police departments. They want a dual purpose dog ... when in fact , anyone knowledgable , realizes the dog , the GS , should have 1 job to do . And only 1 job. Any working dog should have 1 job only . Can some do both endeavors , perhaps, but ideally should they - No. ... So those that disagree - when a dual dog is scenting a site for narcotics and there comes a felon heading toward the officer, should the dog defend the officer or should it stay on task scenting ? stupid qiuestion , ?? then I say the dog should only have 1 and only 1 task to 100% unequivocally conntrate on .

And : ' breeders cater to what is on demand ' doesn't cut it. No one forces anyone to breewd anything. they do that of their own volition . They take responsibility for what they do or don't do ... That is a cop out to breed because the public says so . That fact is people sell out their values and conscience for money .