Is the current crop of DDRs Showline dogs? - Page 1

Werner Dalm the former DDR breeding warden said in an interview that the modern day DDR's are showline dogs, at first i was shocked as to how he could say this but upon further reflection i have to agree with him. What are the ddrs known for today?

It is all about conformation not working ability, there is not a single modern DDR dog that people speak about today in terms of having or producing working abilities. As controversial as it may be its the hard truth unfortunately that i have to accept.

Looking at a DDR kennel that i highly respect vom Parchimerland their recent breedings hve been with WGWL Xoltan von peroh, Waton von der Schiffslache , Jorkan von der Planwarte, Hercules vom Großen Ex, Bosco Wolfsbankring, Henrik Wolfsheim and so on ll are dogs that are known for their working abilities but if he female doesnt hve those abilities then isnt it useless?

Werner's (Parchimer Land) most recent breeding was Knurri's Andor/Nola v Parchimer Land and 100% DDR lines.

Yes thats his latest ones but before that was mostly WGWL or other lines

Why are people still talking about DDRs. There is no such thing as the DDR. The Deutsche Demokratic Republic disappeared in 1989, thirty two years ago. I can understand how in 1995 or maybe even 2000 one could speak of DDR German Shepherds, but 32 years later?? Come on.... there is no wall, there is free travel and only one SV. There cannot be very many dogs now in Eastern Germany which have no blood from dogs in the West. There might be a few but the gene pool would be pretty small.

There may be a few breeders alive still who were breeding in the old DDR but probably not too many. If a 30 year old was breeding then, he or she would be 62. Working line breeders existed and still exist in what was the old DDR, but also in what was then West Germany. And there were also breeders in the DDR who paid attention to conformation. You can see pictures from old Sieger Shows which were held in the DDR. Did the dogs look different from those in the West. Not at first. But certainly by the time Hermann Martin took over the SV in the West, they looked different. Breeders in the East did not become infatuated with color among other things which happened in the West. But now there is no difference in how working dogs work based on what part of Germany they come from. Take a look at the Bundessiegerprufung results. They are not dominated by dogs from the East. nd the show dogs look the same throughout German as well.

Best to just to speak of working lines breeders. Any differences are imaginary Germany has been one country for three decades. That is a lot of dog generations

@Klossbruhe with respect
1) you say there is no ddr dog but you mention there are old timers that still breed those types so there is a ddr dog then.
2) There are quite a lot of dog from east Germany that are free from dogs in the west bit a problem has arisen which is the gene pool is becoming smaller, I'm not interested in keeping the bloodline pure.
3) Not all working lines produce the same temperament and characteristics there a certain characteristics which I like in the ddr and will strengthen them with other bloodlines to produce the dog that i want.
4) You answered you own question about if the west German dogs looked different to the ddr to which you pointed out not at first because they were the foundation dogs, eventually they produced what they were looking for and they looked different.
5) I'm not interested in colour either.
6) Could it be the the east German dogs are not producing good results because they have been bred poorly over the years compared to the other lines.
7) I didn't say that there is a difference in working dogs based on the different part of Germany you come from its a ludicrous statement they all do IPO or other sports. Could it be that showlines look the same throughout Germany because there is a standard but there is not official standard for the ddr currently.
8) Not all working line dogs are the same though
9) Does it matter what they are called?
10) Have a nice day =)

I'm inclined to agree with Klossbruhe that any 'pure' - or nearly pure - 'family lines' of dogs being bred in what WAS the old DDR ( or elsewhere, though possibly for convenience near that area !) - are very unlikely to be contributing much to the GSD's general gene pool by now.

But supposing there is ANYTHING in this except a marketing opportunity, and IF they are now 'showdogs' rather than Working dogs, I can't help wondering which Shows they are being entered into ?  If the template for structure being advocated and aimed at with 'DDR' is - as some on here would have it - for a solid, chunky 'manstopper' build, to mimic or continue DDR 'type', then surely such dogs are not likely to fit easily into the conformation expected for either ASL or SV ?

And that is without taking into consideration anything in regard to temperament, and suitability for training, issues.

There are breeders who continue to breed 100% DDR, Kranich Hof, Ludwigseck, Weltwich, ParchimerLand, K'nurris ... but I watch videos and they have nothing to do with the DDR of 30 years ago ... I speak of character

Extending the reasoning of WGSL and DDR shouldn't be considered separate types of GSD because the old East and West Germany have been reunited since 1989, then all dogs bred in the U.S. should be ASL just because of geography, instead of categorized as Czech, WGSL, DDR, and ASL by pedigrees and characteristics of the dogs.

To me, this doesn't make a lot of sense because there are different types of GSD with distinct characteristics. As a buyer, knowing what types of GSD are in a pedigree is invaluable to selecting a breeder/litter to contact to maximize chances of getting a puppy that's right for my intended purpose(s).

There are a lot of GSD in various countries that are mixes of types, that are neither one nor the other. I had one that was a mixture of WGSL and Czech. She had characteristics of both types of GSD, but she favored WGSL type more strongly than Czech type in both temperament and appearance. Even so, she was still a mixture of the two types. She did not look or act like the ASL dogs that I have experience with and would not have been properly categorized as ASL, even though she was bred and whelped in the U.S.

She was a great pet, very protective of both family and the house, and we loved her dearly, but she would have made a lousy LE K9. She would have washed for temperament reasons and would not have been selected for such training.

And that, GSCat, sums up the whole farce in a nutshell. Given that - as ever - there are no two dogs in any one litter that are exactly alike, either for temperament or working abilities, or conformation, and that the most one can hope for is that the siblings are roughly alike and that all fall within the parameters of general Shepherd 'type' [as distinct from being 'like' a Mali or a Beauceron, or a Peke], then trying to 'prove' there is one branch of the family, to some extent or another based in some dogs that lived on the DDR side of an artificial human-inspired border across a country over a quarter-century ago, is actually nonsense.

Even if some kennels can prove they used 'DDR-only' ancestors for ALL their stock, every time in the present day that they have introduced a smigeon of blood from a W German line by using a new bitch, every time they raise a litter sired by a not-quite 'DDR' stud dog, they introduce a random genetic element. And every time you breed a generation you get further and further away from what dogs at the foot of the tree brought to the party.

Hundmutter- What you bring up is exactly why for my current dog, I decided what I wanted and needed for my intended purposes, and after deciding that, I was very careful to look at a lot of pedigrees and breeders before I contacted anyone. The puppy my breeder picked out of the litter I was interested in was absolutely perfect for my intended purpose(s) THANK YOU! 

 

Homework about both breeders and puppies/GSD types/pedigrees is so worth it.