Be honest : Is this your dog? - Page 19

And you posted another couch potato, Mithuna,
with one snow shot that shows her, in my book,
to be overweight in what she's carrying, still -
though a bit less than some of your other examples.

Of course, show a dog jumping around in snow
and you can get more of a 'tuck up' in loin;
but it doesn't hide that barrel of a ribcage.
I would think more of you and be more convinced
by your view if you stopped the pissing about and
put up some properly 'standing' pics. I don't believe
that you don't understand what you are about.

OP you start '' be honest'' now you be honest, you like to stir poop don't you?

Hunde, the dog got her french ring 1 and was second place in the Canadian ring sport championship.
Was she fit enough to accomplish these? Simply because she has a pic on a sofa makes her a couch P?? And btw shes not a show dog, look at  her ped. 

Ill close my case on this. It is obvious that there is a CASE  for BIGGER  fully functional GSD's, as the examples Drago and Fiona illustrates ( and Ill be generous here to admit Jenni's Capri ). My understanding of the weight limit follows a modern and HETERODOX interpretation of what it means. That is the weight limits are not ABSOLUTE but rather gradational, which makes it LOGICALLY possible to find BIGGER dogs ( which I prefer, and many prominent US breeders have resonate as well ) that are fully functional ( as I have illustrated with very well known examples ).

The " experienced " people here whom I shall call the ORTHODOXY, promote an unaesthetic view of the weight standard, such that  BIGGER ( yet titled and fit ) have to be either villfied ( or made rarified ala Jenni ( only Capri is fit at that weight bs  ) to fit our " horde like " understanding. 

Was she not unfit enough to prevent her from doing it ?
In the long-term, Mithuna, in the long-term ...


@Student : Precisely !

Just want to point something out to you mithuna...that championship had 7 dogs at the ring 1 level and 12 dogs total when you count ring 2 and 3. Now, I know ring is much smaller than IPO...but the dog came in 2nd out of 7. Without seeing the other dogs work...hard to know why.

I also don't know if there is a qualification for the trial or if people just enter to enter. If no qualification is necessary...anyone can enter the trial and even someone who has no business being there can enter and make it seem like it's something when the dog shouldn't really be at a national championship.
I'm not arguing with you that larger dogs aren't capable...they're capable. They can ACCOMPLISH the job. How well? It’s hit or miss, just like with standard dogs.

What I can say is that through my experience, larger dogs tend to have a decrease in drive and cannot compete with their standard sized counterparts when HOW they perform the job is being judged. So for things like PPD or even K9 work…a larger dog is probably capable of doing it. A smaller dog will IMO do it better but again, it’s on a dog by dog basis. There are definitely logical issues with larger dogs that keep them from doing real world work…not being able to clear obstacles, lesser agility, ect. But all in all, a dog that is 10lbs too heavy or an inch too tall can certainly perform a job when “completion” is being judged. BTW…in ring sport…completion is judged, not the way the dog does it. Larger dogs have also proven to break down faster, look at the larger breeds, they barely live to be 10 years old. The bigger the dog, the shorter it’s life span, the shorter it’s working life. A huge negative to a department that easily paid a lot of money for a trained K9.

I also don't know where you got the idea that there is a weight limit...this is America, there is no limit to anything. Breed what you want, when you want. But feel free to contact breeders that base their breeding program on oversized dogs and breeding over the standard...let me know how many of them even bother to work their dogs...much less title in a protection venue.

I realize that as someone with very little real world experience its hard for me to explain to you the difference between getting an IPO3 at a club trial and getting one at the USCA nationals where a dog has to not only qualify prior to the national to be allowed to trial there and also be scrutinized at a much higher standard of judging, but maybe you do have the understanding as to how the different levels of various sports are and in your example...how the fact that the dog only achieved a ring 1 title and didn't go onto 2 or 3 is a sign of a dog that wasn't possibly as great as some of its counterparts.

Why do I get the feeling we are wasting our breath / ink, yet
AGAIN, Bav ? Absolutely you are right in what you say ^^^;
I remain concerned about Anna dying too soon and in arthritic
pain just 'cos Mithuna knows better than everyone else. Thought
he cared about his dog ?

Mithuna asks questions and calls responders hordes, nice.

If a person doesn't follow his bs lead, he calls names. Don't know why a guy like mithuna can't be happy with what they have and what they 'like' without seeking acceptance/approval from people he is certain will disagree with him. It's perverse. Personally, I enjoy and love my dogs regardless of any approval from anyone...

I know right, questions aren't really questions. They are kind of mechanisms.

Is it a Czech dog owners thing, dissenters are hordes of trolls.

Maybe something will stick eventually and the guy will figure out that he needs to dig deeper than just the headline. The acceptance of others is also quite confusing, I don’t think anyone here really cares what kind of dog other people own, they know what kind of dog they want and they’ll talk about it…but no one holds a gun to anyone else’s head to get that type of dog. Luckily in the United States there are breeders that can provide you with what you want.

The reason people fight “oversized” is that they don’t want people breeding FOR that trait. If an oversized dog pops up in a litter no one is going to force you to cull the pup, it’s still a German Shepherd, but it’s just oversized and it’s completely normal for a breed organization to try to keep those types of dogs out of the breeding pool. Btw…there are plenty of large/borderline oversized dogs that are very prominent in pedigrees. There are also many dogs who are known to produce oversized offspring…so the genetics will always be there, there is no reason to breed specifically for it.

There are also plenty of people competing at high levels with larger dogs, but go to those trials and just watch them work. Yeah…a big dog…but the speed and intensity is so lacking in many of them. Dogs barrel instead of running, they barely launch on bites, most don’t even bother fighting on the escape or during the drive, who knows why? But just watch the dogs, size doesn’t impress. As a helper, I’d rather catch a big lumbering dog any day over a smaller, quicker, faster dog flying down the field. Are there outliers? Absolutely, but they’re few and far in between. One that comes to mind in particular is Glenn vom Haus Valkenplatz. Had the pleasure to meet him a few months ago and due to retirement he’s probably a little bit bigger than what he was during his working days, but even then I imagine he would be considered oversized. Not by much, but definitely up there. Great big dog, tons of drive, moved that frame extremely fast for even standard sized dogs.