If the Capt. was alive today - Page 16

aaykay & Joanro, all opinions have value but there might be only one correct way out for the depression GSD is in nowadays, putting the blame totally on show breeders and show dogs and ignoring that the work has its own set back won't help the future of the breed in my opinion, eliminating the show dogs from the gene pool would be a loss to the breed, using the show along with the work to unite and correct the GSD is more (scientefic) to me, isn't there any good left in the show genes?!!!

Ibrahim 

Aesthetic appeal is a matter of opinion, and I see no beauty in the showline structure, no matter how I look at it.  There might be some unsightly working line dogs out there, but my working lines are as beautiful as a german shepherd can get, in my opinion.  I am NOT for mixing the lines, but more power to those that can do so and consistently meet the breed standard.  I DO however agree that selective breeding for sport can be overdone, and offset the balance of the breed.

Darylheret,

I follow your posts and I know how well educated you're on the breed and you know what you're doing, I only hope that such breeders as you won't disregard a show dog from their breeding program if they think it can benefit their line in structure or whatever it can or might add to their dogs, djc and others are doing that intelligently.

Ibrahim 

Never will I use the show lines as they are today to mix with any working lines. I maintain that two separate breeds is in order and as a matter of fact, they already are separate, it's just that crossing them produces registrable offspring. Diversity of genes is a must to maintain a healthy breed, and as usual, Gustav, you speak with ultimate truth!

Ibrahim, I suppose if you are an admirer of the show lines, then there is good in still in them, just not for mixing up with working dogs to bring them down also in structural soundness. Let them be their own entity as a separate breed.

Excellent post Gustav.  It is obvious you know what you are talking about.  I think you have identified the mechanism by which GSD folks have chased objectives to a point which detract from the standard which is as you say a balance of four basic types.  Yes, folks have pursued special interests and used methods typically reserved for manufacturing and developing specialized equipment or tools.  The buyers of the worldwide market who pay very high prices for SL dogs probably do not really know what a good and true GSD is. To them the best is the winner of a beauty contest. They have in many cases sacrificed the correct GSD on the alter of winning at any cost, including the other aspects of the GSD which must be balanced.

And this ultra competitiveness has also produced too many prey monsters which are not suitable 24/7 in home family pets and protectors. It has also produced showline dogs with such stunning curbside appeal physically that they rate 11 on a graven image scale of 10. When there is worldwide competition for the best looking GSDs at the annual beauty/runway show each year, this has a heavy impact to reinforce the continuance and further specialization of such breedings and cookie cutter type.  The balanced GSD best described as the total GSD is then left to the landsgruppen shows where the hard core breeders show their showline dogs which ae bred and trained to their own view of what is correct and is not driven by the annual runway beauty show.

What drives the production of beautiful but compromised GSDs top dogs that win the zuchtschau, or the top prey monsters that win in the profung (also compromised), is "this is what wins".  And for the zuchtschau, the financial rewards are of sufficient intensity to keep this cycle continuing as long as the world wide market and very high prices hold.  If this worldwide market for the top SL dogs shrinks, it will become more likely you will see changes in the hearts and minds, especially if worldwide buyers become more informed from the information made available on the Internet and are interested in buy less cookie cutter dogs which are actually more correct to the standard.

I think that all that is needed to bring back the showlines is to to make the tests to breed them more difficult. If it took 20 years for them to go downhill, wouldn't 20 years be sufficient to bring them back? There are some tough show line specimens out there, if they where bred consistently I would assume it would be a matter of time to elevate the average working ability in the breed.

This photo from the top of this very page (a few moments ago) is what I believe the Captain would deem as an unacceptable example of the race:



A dog resembling the following would be more preferable:




However, these snap shots in time do not address, in anyway, the dog's disposition and workability which are higher priorities as communicated by v. Stephanitz to the best of my understanding.

Form will be debated for 100 years just as it has been debated for the 100 years prior.  

The true test is:  What can your dog do and of what use is he?

@Gusmanda....the SL have been intensely linebreeding on Canto and Quanto since 1970 to 75......Do the math on how long and saturated this is. The only solution for the showlines is to bring in completely new blood to invigorate the type, which will alter the color pattern a lot, which will change the uniformity a lot, which will get us back to the type of dogs that used to win and you will see the health and tempersment improve dramatically in the shortest time. What's so hard about that???????

Bringing in new blood to SL would have to improve them, there's not much room for them to go any lower, however, the problem I see with mixing the lines is dilution of the healthy lines. So trying to fix one at the possible expense of the other seems self-defeating. The SL looks as it does because of preference; the priorities for selection would not change, therefore the outcome of mixing could only be detrimental to the other lines. ThIs is how I see it.