If the Capt. was alive today - Page 15

Ibrahim,Indisputably, YES. The Captain never mentioned he intended to create a show piece, with limited capabilities for work. How else to justify having such disperate LINES , than to make two separate breeds? I have a GSL that I even put schH1 on, and he is no more the same breed of dog as my Czech GSDs, than a French Bull Dog is a Dogo de Argentina.

If we look at showlines a minor %age of them are outstanding and consistent in work ability, and if we look at work lines a minor %age of them are outstanding and consistent in conformation, no individual line is what the standard describes and or what the old GSD in 70s and 80s was and had it all in one dog. I am against insulting the showline by calling it a frog due to some extremely angulated rears, what the GSD is nowadays is not the mistake of show breeders only, work breeders also share responsiblity, why do many of the work GSDs have faults in structure and lack in conformation? A GSD should be correct in form and performance, a show or work breeder who produces consistently well conformed GSD, strong temperament and can perform in various tasks should be appreciated and supported, no matter what the color is or bloodline.
Show has better consistent type, work has better consistent performance, I believe in introducing work into show and vise versa.
Lastly, no matter how much one would differ with persons like Gustav. Preston, ... he/she should never reach a moment to have to be (not nice) to them, such guys are a wealth of history, information and real experience, a clever person should learn from and respect no matter what he/she may be close or far from their opinions, a healthy atmosphere in between us would reflect itself on our breed.

Ibrahim

Have you noticed the top line, just to name one departure from the breed standard in SL? Breeding for "show" is precisely the problem. A healthy atmosphere would be two separate breeds, good for the dogs and their people.

Similar scenario happened with the pitbull. The "true" game type & the short, stocky bully type. German Shepherd dogs have become 2 different dogs.

Quoted for truth

Joanro:
"A healthy atmosphere would be two separate breeds, good for the dogs and their people."

I completely agree.

Ibrahim, very well said!  Nothing is as lacking in class as a newbie coming on a board like this, and disrespecting one of the long-time members, especially people like Gustav, Preston, rik and Hexe, to name a few.  A mature person should be able to disagree with someone without offending them.

As for what you said about the  working lines, Koos Hassing, who wrote the artice I quoted earlier where he talks about the showlines failing protection at the sieger show in Ulm, has this to say about his beloved working lines:

My honest opinion about more and more working line breeders is that these dogs are so ugly you can better breed malinois!!
 


I totally agree with you that both lines need improvement, and that the artificial separation which occured during the Martin brother's reign is a very bad thing for the breed. 

That's all a part of the history of the breed and changes in a"line" is precisely what creates two breeds from one.

See the problem as I see it; is the intent of a breeding program....dogs should not be bred for conformation or for sport. Dogs SHOULD be bred for working and for structure to attain the working. In past times, a litter of GS could produce a puppy that would herd, and one that could be police, and one that would do Sch, and one that would be a service dog, and all from the same litter. And if one of the pups had superior structure by the time it was 6 months old, then people may well show the dog. When we went into a line assembly approach to spitting out show/sport type dogs, then the variety/utility in a litter started evaporating. The industrial mentality took over in breeding....but the problem is the breed is comprised of 3 to 4 different type of herding/protection dogs made into a nice working dog. So the more specialization you attain, the more you unfavorably stack a certain type and LOSE the overall balance. That's why to me all colors, head shapes, tall and lanky and short and powerful GS are pretty if they have the look and temperament of Eagles. The one common denominator has to be nervebase to allow the different variances in temperament still be productive in service to man, which includes being a pet. We should never breed for a specific physical type because the breed is a creation of many physical types made into a hard working dog....but we should always breed for solid STRUCTURE and HEALTH. When this breed is bred that way the genepool stays open and the health issues minimize themselves. Uniformity of asthectic looks goes out the door, but uniformity of working beauty stays vibrant. A dog like Marko vom Cellerland, who may not have perfect demensions according to upper arm and angulation for the anal retinal purists, but had perfect balance and movement with strong working qualities to include herding(father was HGH), and thus was worthy of being the top GS in the world in work and picture.
@ Blitzen, i appreciate your response and I hope we can all move back to the middle on this breed.

Ibrahim: Show has better consistent type, work has better consistent performance, I believe in introducing work into show and vise versa.


What "consistent type" are you referring to, when it comes to the showline dogs of today ?  All you need to do is to go back and look at the pictures of the siegers over the past decades, and you can see a consistent (and progressive) sinking of the rear-end in the SL siegers, starting from around a couple of decades back or so.  The Working line dogs have stayed true to type - consistently - from the perspective of having the structural and temperamental suitability to be a working dog, which in turn is the whose reason for the existence of the GSD.

I say get rid of the showline dogs from the breed totally and/or call them something else or mix some working lines into them to bring the sunk rear-end back to a level topline, and re-introduce some much needed temperamental improvements into those dogs.  Currently, the SL dogs for the most part, are a disgrace to the breed....even the German police have started moving toward swapping their GSDs with the Belgian Malinois, regardless of the political incorrectness of such a drastic move.

Gustav, that is a very interesting thorough breeding philosophy, I hope in near future one of the well informed members starts a seperate thread where breeders and knowlegable members can discuss details of their breeding strategies and goals, their failures and successes and how they implement the standard in their breeding and what advice they can give to young breeders based on their own failures and what they did or didn't achieve, we can all learn from such a topic.

I correct: ... based on their own failures and sucesses .....

Ibrahim