USCA Sieger Show - Page 3

It isn't about geography; or at least it isn't only about the size of the States as compared to the European nations. The distances / times do not help, but the problems people have been describing are underlying problems in our hobby wherever you are. Xeph you are spot on about the parental taxi service element, and there's minimal interest from youngsters who could be our potential next generation handlers, when there are all those out-of-school activities to consider. But so much of what Dog1 and Klossebruhe have said is true; and you can hear those points made in tiny England, just as much as America.

Wow Klossbruhe thank you for your insights and thoughtful words regarding our beloved GSD's. I will need to reread your post many more times in order for it all to sink in. Thank you for being real in your words it shows the passion you have for our dogs and their futurity. It's late and I'm tired but Klossbruhe respect to you and thankful you took the time to post .

I tried to edit out my DP^ but left it over the 3 hours, apologies. Wanted to add: in the case of all that DOG1 and Klossbruhe listed, it seems to me that, as with the fall in participation in dog showing generally (many breeds can complain of similar problems, just on the "only the big breeders can do it" side, even without the working qualifications additional complications with breeds like ours), there really will not be solutions until we collectively find some way to deal with APATHY. I don't have many answers; but people always have reasons why it cannot be them who help a novice, or who start up a Club, for example. Some of those reasons are no doubt sound ones, but there are many where they would rather moan about a lack of facilities than put in the work to start and maintain those facilities. Things just don't get done / improved if we don't take some responsibility.

I’ve been trying to get more people to show, I still put high value on showing in the working class so I want people to title their dogs, but I’ve spoken to plenty of working line people who don’t feel like it’s necessary to show. Now that USCA has their own koer master I think it’s going to be easier to have trials and shows together, on top of which that makes the club a lot more money. The average club trial in the US is less than 10 dogs, a show brings in at least 20 if not more entries. It’s a great way for the club to offset costs and even make some money. Like people have stated, it needs to start at the club level…at club shows you’re unlikely to get “professional” handlers and so people need to learn how to handle their own dogs or a club member’s dog. I handled my dog…and even got compliments from the judge as to how well I did it considering it’s not the norm and usually the dog doesn’t show that well.

I know working people will always have an issue getting placed at the back of the line pretty much automatically. Seeing dogs that don’t have the same working ability or have weaker temperaments get placed ahead of their own dogs is always disheartening. But I think people need to worry less about their placement and more about the information the judge gives you about your dog.

I think things like the regional universal sieger is a great way to get more people involved that usually wouldn’t, people like to get awards and be able to call their dog something special, even if just regionally. But we also need to keep titling dogs and I think we definitely need to figure out a way for the average person to be able to title a less than perfect dog without devoting their life or thousands of dollars to it.

See what happened now? WDA members like myself gave up showing totally. The best dogs were not even on this show. Those breeders who could really compete and win the classes were not even there. Dog1 is trying to give everybody lesson,but he was one of those who helped to break up WDA. Many remember when just WDA had a Sieger Show and was 400-500 dogs at the show,50-60 males and females in each working class. Who lost here the most ? Dog World because of greed,power and stupidity of people.

Hundmutter and BW,

I'll try to express a few thoughts reference your posts and ideas.

There's an underlying problem across the board. A few years ago the GSD market had better awareness and knowledge of quality and the market wasn't flooded with lesser quality dogs riding on the coat tails of better specimens. The situation is now, the value of a title is diminished as the GSD Community is in general not aware or associates a value to it. So there's a problem where the public is uneducated and breeders are un-rewarded for going the extra mile. Add to that there's no practical way to do something with a well bred puppy from titled and surveyed parents and there you have one of the situations that plague the GSD Community.

A few years ago the event schedule was filled with shows. These events usually were money makers for a club if done well. Even with the expense of bringing over an SV judge. Typically you have 60 entries in the show. Figure an average of 70 dollars per entry and you're looking at 4,200. Add a breed survey to it and get 5 dogs at 150.00,,,there another 750.00. Dental notations pick up another 50 bucks. An AD brings in another 100.00 bucks. Have a club member grill lunch maybe another 300.00 on the show day. 50/50 raffle maybe another 100, and you're bringing in 5,500. If the judge you bring in is a judge than can judge a trial, you can offer the trial as a bonus. There's your judges expenses covered. There used to be money for a club in this as a motivating factor.

Look at the event schedule now. There are a lot of trials. This is great. I'm really happy people are titling dogs. I don't see many,,,, maybe any show dogs in the results,,,, but it's all good. How does a club bring in a judge, have 10 dogs in a trial and break even? This has to be a struggle and a bit of a demotivating force.

What does it take?

Here's a start. SV, WUSV, GSDCA, USCA, promote their judges program and offer incentives to be a trial/conformation judge and koermeister. To prime the pump we're going to have to follow the USCA example. Have USCA and WDA judges that are not SV recognized as well as some that are. Since both USCA and GSDCA are WUSV members they are obligated to accept each others results through the WUSV constitution. We just need to get both organizations to recognize that. It's in plain writing but the WUSV or SV is going to do what they usually have to do and step in to make both organizations work together.

This will at least get the foundation laid to begin progress where the incentive is there to progress. Prime the pump, get the judges on board, show the clubs how to run a profitable event and you have created the environment to grow the GSD Community again.

How do you get the clubs to participate? Right now there's a big fear if you put on an event, somebody is going to have to go into their pocket to pay the loss the club will foreseeably incur when their event looses money. Lets see a show of hands, who wants to dig into their pocket and pull out a hundred bucks or so to make up for the losses? Hmmm, I don't see any hands.

Here's my suggestion and I've presented it indirectly to one organization. The organization steps in and says; each year you're going to have a show/trial event. We are going to help you with two things to insure your success. We are going to help you set it up, help with the advertising, help with what it takes to make your event profitable and we are going to provide the insurance for your event. The insurance policy for your event is on us. Second, we are going to guarantee your club does not loose money. That's right, you follow our instructions to the letter and if your event looses money, we cover the difference. No one in your club is out of pocket.

If both organizations did that, you have removed all but one obstacle for the newly formed club that is contemplating putting on an event. That obstacle being paperwork. Holy Cow! The paperwork. It's enough to prevent any club from taking their first step or even an experienced club in many cases.

How do you deal with the paperwork? You have a catalog, show cards, money to collect, entry form to get filled out and someone to check them,,,there's copies of paperwork nobody really understands and it's coming at us from two fronts, the SV and one of three organizations in the US. What is accepted and what isn't? I have a German dog imported as a puppy with an AKC pedigree that has a BH under a GSDCA judge, and AD under a USCA judge and IPO1 under and SV judge, OFA hips and elbows and a USCA breed survey. Can this dog even be shown at this event? Who knows? Who wants to go there? It's a big obstacle and what happens if you mess it up?

Fortunately there's a option in place some clubs are already taking advantage of including one of the National organizations. Run your paperwork through Christine at gsdeventsonline.com and your paperwork is done, no problems for the club. Catalog, show cards, copies, pay on line, it's all done for you.

This is pretty much what it will take to remove the obstacles and create an enviornment where the GSD can grow again. It's doable but enough people have to recognize there's a problem to start looking for ways to fix it. Let's hope that happens before apathy takes over and it's too late.

Bavarianwagon
Working lines dogs will always be placed at the back in a show so long as working lines breeders do not care about conformation. The fact is, most of these dogs have bad conformation, some very bad. Maybe they bite good, but their conformation is not good. But there are a few working lines breeders who do care about conformation, and I have seen such dogs place well, one even went first at a club show here in the US. In Germany, when Peter Messler was alive and judging, and then later Reinhard Meier, several working lines dogs with good conformation received respectable V ratings at the German Sieger Show. Unfortunately, most working lines breeders and owners don't give a fig about conformation and only care about one thing, bite, bite how does the dog bite and believe they can breed for temperament which is debatable anyway.

Ironically, Heinrich Messler, an orthopedic surgeon and now SV president, gave a series of seminars to breeders and I attended one several years ago at a breeders day seminar in Salzburg. At the seminar, he had slow motion films which showed that the conformation and back structure of show line dogs was much better suited to absorb the shock of impact with the helper (and I do not mean jamming) just a normal attack bite, than working lines dogs with their flat back structure. Working lines breeders should take note of this.

Lastly, as I stated in an earlier post, in our club we encourage all of our members to enter their dogs in our show. We make them do show training. No one shows their own dog, we all show each others dogs and double handle our own. And, if you have a working lines club, the field will be level for you if you have a club show.

In my opinion, a club show is where you can really tell what kind of conformation your dog has. I owned a dog which never went higher than V1 at the US Sieger Show, yet at club shows it beat every VA dog it went up against (when the judge did not know which dog had ever gone VA or not) and it went up against several many times. What does that tell you. Mostly that the Sieger Shows anywhere, not just in Germany or the US, are political and certainly not an accurate measure of how good a dog is. And most of the judges at the SV know this.

As an old German breeder once told me Du müss weiss, was du hasst. Was er bei der Schau macht,spielt keine Rolle. Wenn du einen guten Hund hasst, muss du damit zufrieden sein. (You must know what you have. What your dog does at the show is not important. If you have a good dog, you should be satisfied with that.) Still, you sometimes feel bad when your good dog does not get placed where he should. A long time breeder and one of my mentors once said to me---Denkst du daran, es ist nur die Meinung eines alten Deutchen Kerls. (Remember, it's just the opinion of some old German guy) I try to keep that advice in front of me when I take my dogs to a show.

I've seen a good many WL dogs who should have gone or should go VA. Those hinged toplines are better at absorbing shock? Really?

Ok then.

Too bad the standard doesn't call for a curved or hinged topline.

There are many working line dogs who absolutely should've been put ahead of show line dogs at a show. But heaven forbid they not be cookie cutter black and red dogs. Forget about the bite work. Forget about nice moderate construction. I'm not talking about dogs that have absolutely no rears and no fronts and coyote coats. I'm talking about beautifully constructed dogs who do not get the ratings they deserve.

Politics man....and money, hence why normal people dodge the gsd world like the plague.

Incidently a slight roach back is essential for athletism.

..."opinion of some old German guy." I'd guess the opinion of SV judges is not much better thought of than our own home-grown Specialist judges on the majority, Germanic, side these days, here in the UK. Time was, even the 'Alsatianists' took SOME notice of what the visiting German judges said; but that was a bloody long,long time ago. But we still bring them over here. To assess fewer and fewer dogs at each Show. The number of Shows is decreasing; the number of Breed Clubs shrinking. That, in an overall atmosphere of shrinking public interest and take-up of Dog Showing generally.

Don't know whether to believe its all the fault of "Designer Crossbreeds"; the increase in the number of people who become dog-owners who really don't have time and facilities to do the best by ANY dog, but must have one ...now! ; or lack of guidance (seen by some as "interference") from the SV, as far as the GSD is concerned; or the pointed failure of the national Kennel Clubs to offer greater real support, on lines suggested by what Dog1 writes^. It's wierd that in a time when we ought to have MORE time free for hobbies, everybody is busy, busy, busy. Could be because everyone thinks you have to achieve EVERYTHING all as quickly as possible while you are still 'young' enough to enjoy it. Nobody wants to plan and wait for successes anymore. Odd, when the current young adult generation is as reluctant as ever to think much about the life-years that stretch on before them. And yet it is mainly only the older people who are willing to soldier on in the necessary roles of Show Secretaries, Club Officers, etc - and when they all drop in harness, the newer generation is likely to look a bit lost & silly. By which time it might be altogether too late.