Any AKC Breed Champions with SchH Titles? - Page 7

I believe in "the Trojan Horse" approach, and attend alot of AKC obedience classes and events. I have a few acquaintances who show conformation with AKC style dogs...I will stop by the breed ring where we gawk in disbelief at each others dogs too LOL LOL! yes, the head and neck are higher, they are 'slab sided' and horribly deformed looking in the rear end. Some have long bone from pastern to hock angled nearly parallel to the ground and hocks wobble like electic mixers when they move. Sorry, I am a horse person by years experience, and use horsey conformation terms sometimes! I also notice huge ears, narrow bodies. Even on some dogs who are AKC champions the body is so long, narrow and natural carriage is low in the rear. I had some assistance from a very experienced AKC show person in a breeding situation, and it was enlightening from the perspective of comparison. He liked the head, masulinity and substance of my dog...but not the shoulder or rear angulation which he felt was lacking. He loved the temperament, and more than anything, the libido, as in his experience, it is very common that many AKC champion males seem to lack the desire to reproduce. Also, on Lance - I acquired a litter in whelp which was an accidental breeding to a non titled male. Placing several pups through networking in pet homes, a couple of people had had Am bred or Am x German cross GSDs previously. In one 5 generation pedigree, Lance appeared an inordinate number of times - if I ****remember**** correctly - close to 30!!!!!!!!!!! The dog had a long and complicated health history, and had cost the owner over $5000 in serious vet costs throughout his life.

maybe the Lance in bred pedigree was 8 generations...it was a big piece of paper LOL LOL and nearly 3 years ago!!!!

Thanks Kougar, I missed your post earlier - had given up hope actually! Tell you what, that's a grim picture you paint above. All this past reinforcing inbreeding to Lance isn't going to do much to rectify things in future either! I presume all the stuff above and more erect neck is what all that business about AM Show animal being different is all about. I had some photographs of Lance I hadn't looked at for years and compared these to those of 'normal' style dogs, and was amazed at how much difference there actually is - in head and neck I mean. Cheers

Patrishap, Actually I've seen a number of American pedigrees over the years and seen very few with a lot of inbreeding on Lance. Lance was also a LONG time ago. Unless breeders utilized both Zues and Zeto of Franjo (who were Lance bred to his daughter) you really didn't start to double up on Lance until way back in the pedigree. My first GSD was in 1980, and Lance was off her pedigree. I know she had several lines to Lance including one thorugh Zues of Franjo and Beau of Fran-jo on her dams side, but only one line through her sire's side. She might have been 5,5,-6 Lance. Inbreeding was really not done as much then as it is today. Today's pedigrees make me really cringe as most have multiple lines to Hawkeye/Hammer in the first six generations. this years grand victor was an inbred double grandson of a past grand victor. Scarry! Look at Lance's pedigree. his head is no higher than anything behind him and this is not where he made his mark. Also his Grand Dam Frigga of Silver Lane was American not english and I beleive a Pfifer von Bern granddaughter. At that time most of the American dogs were heavily European in the first four generations. Lance is being posed in that picture by none other than a very young Jimmy Moses. What came from Lance was the rear. Not the upheaded, stright shoulders we see today. He is the beginning of the long second thigh. And Elegence. A word I'm not certain should be associated with GSDs. Susan

Hi Susan, I may have disageed with you elsewhere, but greatly appreciate your input above. Also, despite a natural insatiable curiosity, my knowledge of English and AM dogs is practically non existent, a natural result of undue focus on local scene. I remember when I first sighted photograph of Lance the steeper neckline instantly reminded of what some people used to call the old English Show Style. When I looked him up in data base its the same feature that I was first struck by. I think it's probably partly to do by what you're used to. A person in US fairly familiar with it probably wouldn't have same reaction. Anyhow, when Blitz said something about all German descent, I started looking for some explanation for this departure from the norm ?. When I spotted the animals you named, I turned two plus two into five, and you saw the result! I'm glad you pointed it out. As you say, he's now well back in time but still, with number of litters and the way Breeders all want to linebreed back to the champ of the day (years?), he must have left quite a genetic legacy. The same thing happens today, as you point out. Trouble is, Susan, I'm working in the dark - I simply don't know what the average AM Show Dog looks like. I can't say, as you can undoubtedly, see, there's where Lance's influence is coming through or whatever. What I do say though, is that Lance's more upright assembly in front of shoulder blades, simply doesn't seem to fit with all that I've ever learned about what a proper Shepherd ought to display. All learned from sources wholly external to the US, I should add. Look Susan, just have a look at photograps of a number of German animals on data base, and then compare with Lance's, and I think you'll see what I mean. This, in weirdly acadamic way, is what intriques me so! And, what forces conspired to make it so. Way my mind works - practical value? Nil. Thanks for pointing out Moses - didn't know. As you say, elegance is not exactly prime requisite for what's meant to be a working animal! Regards.

I am no expert to be sure, but.... I have always heard that Lance was the begining of a big change in the AM GSD. I have also heard that it was his dam that was more of a problem than he himself, when line breeding. Just for intrest's sake... I went through some of the ancesters of Lance. I don't know how anyone can say that he was not too heavely line bred on!!!! I lost count of all the 2/3 breedings and there were many 2/3/3 and 2/3/4 on Lance too. Look for yourself. To use any dog that much is never healthy!

Thanks Debby, As you say, it's not healthy - what's worse is that progeny becomes more homozygous for diplayed features, making it that much harder to later effect change. By 'ancestors' you obviously mean 'descendents'.

Yes, sorry! I did mean descendents/progeny. Another thing to note while you are looking at Lance's progeny in this data base.... it is very limited. Who really knows how much in/line breeding there was in the overall picture?!!

Debbie, Had another look, and I think it's fairly clear that more erect neckline comes in through Frigga, and then back to Jewel of Judex and whole stack of AM animals. Has anybody ever commented or written about this? Ah, silly question, with Lance's status, they must have? Yeh, information dries up very quickly, once you leave German side behind. Still, there must be local books etc that explain Lance's influence from there? Anyway, don't worry too much about it. I was just looking for a quick, short explanation!

Hi Peter: I am the last person to remotely consider myself an expert. I just listen alot. I believe what made Lance remarkable was not his head carriage but his rear angulation. I was told that some people thought it to be a "mutation". There is some information contaned in the "Total Shepherd Dog" by Fred L. Lanting on this dog and he writes on P. 19: "The Fords (the owners) used many of their own bitches and arranged co-ownerships on others, then linebred on Lance unitl it seemed one could not turn around without tripping over Lance's descendants. His domination continued into the 1980s when Lance-free lines once again began to be seen, thanks largely to an increase in interest in Shutzhund and imports. By 1985, Lance figured in the pedigrees of more than 90 percent of American German Shepherd Dogs..." On P. 105 Fred writes with respect to US Winnters: "Lance of Fran[-Jo: unforgettable son of Fortune of Arbywood and Frohlichs's Elsa v Grunestahl. Lance has been the most -used and linebred-on dog in modern German Shepherd Dog history, winning hearts and ribbons because of his rear angulation and drive, his high withers which helped give him the stallion, stand-up alert and ready-for-action look, his size, and his noble , expressive head. A lot of Troll was obvious in Lance." All I have on Lance in my little collection. Cheers. Sunny