Working line german shepherds - Page 1

so I was looking at some info someone shared with me and it mentioned DDR/East German working lines, Czech working line and west german working line shepherds.  Now I have previously heard of Czech and DDR lines but never of West German working lines.  Is there really West German Working Lines?  I am interested in Schutzhund and have a dog that is west German Showline that I am working with a trainer to prepare for his BH.  I am curious about rings port or KNPV.  How many German shepherds if any have ever competed in these two sports?  I am also interested in competitive obedience.  I like the sounds of first the west German working line then the DDR.  Can anyone give me more info on these three working lines?  Also does anyone know good breeders of working dogs?  I am especially interested in hearing if people know any good breeders of west German working line or DDR shepherds?  I see a lot of Czech or Czech/DDR shepherd lines but not a lot of pure DDR lines and never seen West German Working lines.

There are certainly West German kennels which specialise

more in 'working' dogs than in showdogs/ 'allrounders', with some

having a particular bent toward Herding, so to that extent there are

W/German 'working lines'.

Loads of GSD in KNPV  - or at least used to be;  but as its a

Dutch discipline, primarily, not something  W/G breeders aim

to breed for as such.  (maybe some of the East Europeans do,

but the thred does not ask about them ...)  Ditto  Mondior / Ring; 

people in France and Belgium probably sometimes do, and outside

eg apparently some areas in the States have got into the sport, with

Shepherds;   but you're not talking the 'everyday', so not likely to be many

who breed specifically for it - you'd have to see what breeders say on their

individual websites, I think, if you have seen their kennel stock competing.

There are lines of all and mix of them all. I recently sold a youngster (mostly West German blood) bred in Czech that is excelling in ring. His littermate is in a PD depatment. So the ability to do any sport or venue starts with the ancestors ability to do the same and then hopefully offspring following in their footsteps. And letsnot forget the training they have to do to achieve the handlers goals.

Hundmutter summed it up nicely.

Ok.  Yeah I was studying about KNPV and they don't seem to be in very ready supply around where I live...supply meaning training facilities.  I heard that they used to use the KNPV to test for police dog candidates but has moved more to a sport.  I just liked some of the training they did like food refusal and object guard.  From my understanding schutzhund doesn't focus on that stuff?  

KNPV is not really a sport, its a selection, training and certification process for working police dogs, still, to this day. It is heavily influenced by the police in Holland since they tend to buy their dogs from the KNPV clubs and its sponsored by the Royal Crown. It is a very tough program and it produces a lot of good dogs that are sold as soon as they certify to police agencies all over the world.

The program is not available outside of Holland, people have tried to bring it to the USA, the KNPV wont allow it and I dont blame them. The food refusal exercise is part of all ring sports and so is the object guard. There are some notable differences in some of the exercises in the KNPV from other ring programs in that it focuses on training future police dogs, hence, the chase and bite a suspect on a bike, or the article search or the box search, etc.

To the OP, in addition to the information Hundmutter and GSDPack have provided, I'd like to point out that if you've seen DDR and Czech working line dogs, you actually HAVE seen WG working lines--and some WGSL as well--because both of the former are built upon the united Germany's home breed, the German Shepherd Dog. Consider this: before WW II, dog breeders, owners and handlers could move freely between the countries in Eastern Europe, so there wasn't any 'DDR', and Czechoslovakia wasn't behind the 'Iron Curtain'--so ALL GSDs were German line dogs, period. Also, any division in the lines between 'working' and 'show' was not really present until well after WW II, and it usually attributed to the influence of the Martin brothers, Walter and Martin, of von der Wienerau and vom Arminius kennels. 

As Hundmutter said, it is not unusual to see GSDs participating in KNPV in the Netherlands, as that is where the discipline is seated--though recently there has been some KNPV testing occuring in the US--and if you look at the pedigrees of the GSDs which participate in the activity in Holland, you will find the dogs are primarily Euro working lines, though some may have some Euro show lines [often Danish, if those lines appear in the 1st five generations]. The primary focus for people involved in KNPV in the Netherlands is simply whether a given dog is capable of meeting the challenges the testing demands of it in order to earn a certification in the discipline. An excellent overview of the KNPV program can be found here. There is a French GSD kennel, Val des Hurle Vents, whose dogs continue do quite well in both KNPV and ringsport; this kennel places heavy emphasis on maintaining the versatility of the GSD, and it shows in the dogs they've produced over the years. The Bernueil family's foundation dogs were WG showlines, with the kennel having been founded in 1945, though as more WG breeders began focusing on the dog's appearance in the conformation ring to the sacrifice of the dog's working abilities these Bernueils too moved away from the modern show lines when adding new blood from other kennels to their line.

Modioring in the US is primarily under the auspices of the US Mondioring Association.  Generally in the US you'll find primarily Malinois being worked in the sport, because they're quicker and more agile than most GSDs these days, but a GSD that is truly in the midrange of the standard, instead of at the upper end which has become the trend, can be nearly as quick and equally as agile as any Mal if the dog is kept well-conditioned.

There's a lot of variety in the world of GSDs and dogsport, and you're likely in sort of a 'kid in a candy store' phase right now, where it ALL just looks soooo appealing that you want a part of each selection...For now, you're off to a good start, with a WGSL dog who you're learning the IPO program along with; once you've gotten the BH under your belt, it's onward to your IPO 1, and so on--don't let anyone convince you that you cannot do anything beyond the IPO 1 with your dog because he's a show line dog, either, because it's not true, and generally those who will work to convince you of this are really just trying to sell you a working line puppy or dog they've either bred themselves, or will broker the importation of on your behalf. Your first dog will be a part of every other dog you ever train, because it's the dog you'll be learning along side of, and the one who will endure the majority of the training errors you'll make [and everyone makes them]...so your first dog deserves your full attention and commitment as you travel this path together. I wish you luck, and even more, great success, and hope you'll share your progress here, too.