Average Price? - Page 2

D. H., I agree with you about the issues of titling and working later on with a new owner. Few people understand that the dog must first bond with someone to really work well. Secondly, just someone butchering whatever language the dog was trained in can be a huge problem and the dog may in fact, be well trained, but not understand. There are other problems as you note. A dog who has not been worked for a long time, or one that had crappy and quickie training, whether here in the U.S. or Germany will also have problems and, at the very least, be rusty. None the less, I agree with Preston about pricing.

Preston, keep in mind that every time a dog is judged it is that one person's individual opinion. Be it yours or the judges. Different people interpret the standard differently, has nothing to with not knowing the standard. And judges will always put up what they prefer, how they think a GSD should be. Just like you would put up the dogs the way you think they should be. Intersting that you should note the Batu kennel since Ursus is largely responsible for the short croups we see so much of today. No dog is perfect. You are saying so yourself that even after a year of showing under all sort of different judges with the highlight beeing the Sieger Show even the top dogs have flaws. But the majority of dogs is pretty good, they cannot all be VA. Nor do they need to. Not even a VA will be perfect. And I was not so much referring to different interpretations of standard, what one judge prefers over another, but rather the huge list of health problems that you mentioned. As for dogs "being hitched in the rear due to bad hips" - how do you know that a dog has bad hips? Have you seen the dogs x-rays? Not really sure what that means exactly - hitched in the rear, sorry English is my second language. Sounds more like the pelvis assembly seems disconnected, but that has not necessarily anything to do with HD. As for conformation faults, show me a single GSD alive today that is indeed... perfect. Perfect in all aspects that is. I don't know a single one. What is the price of the average perfect dog anyways? That was not really the question. Just your regular V rated, titled and breed surveyed female. And may I quote you here: "Occasionally a great producer is an animal which only has good confirmation and not great confirmation. I have found this is escpecially true of bitches."

D.H.: I have seen a number of great GSDs who were V or VA which did not display big roach backs, didn't rollup in the rump and were good all the way around. Take Yasko Farbenspiel. One awesome dog in every way. Supermasculine, excellent proportions and angles, great croup, no roach, no rump rollup, awesome color, excellent temperament. One of the all time great GSDs ever if not the greatest. Folks I know and respect told me that Fanto Hirschel was near perfect if not perfect, as was Uran. Ursus the same. I personally saw Natan Pelztierfarm and he was awesome in every way, with these same great traits and no roach problem. I have seen a fair number of very nice V dogs which are clean and close to the standard without roach problems and the horrendous movement impairments such as rump rollup. I saw Kevin Murrtal in person and was very impressed with the dog. Bill Leonard of Estahaus has attended the SiegerSchau in Germany each year for the last 38 years and takes videos. If you look at his DVD for 2005, you will see over half the V and VA dogs have a serious roach problem with rump rollup and serious impairment of movement. You will also see some of the much better dogs back aways suggesting politics is at play. Interestingly enough I have also seen dogs from working lines without these horrendous and visually obvious problems which are really proportioned correctly and are very worthy dogs. Yes, a significant portion of the dog's value is in the eye of the beholder, but most of the quality is directly observable as a reflection of the standard and based on objective measureable criteria. Roach back and rump rollup are not in the standard, are easily recognizable and look bad to any person who is open and honest about it. Yes Batu has produced some short croups, but overall the kennel has made a geat contribution to the breed by producing and promoting very attractive and worthy animals in general without crippling and obvious flaws. In years past I xrayed a substantial number of GSDs with loose hip sockets (one or both), and they have a distinctive gait in many cases which involves a hitch in the rear, somewhat similar to the compensation resulting from roach backs. A significant roach back (ie banana back, arch back, carp back)can never be okay. Good dogs cost a lot of money and there's a good reason: they are still a genetic scarcity even when bred from the best.