Workinglines vs Showlines - Page 21

Biting a jute sleeve is not work and never will be.  Herding is work, police scent work and/or apprehension is work, cadaver scent work, medical scent work, and guide dogs do work.  Home companion dogs and home protection dogs do work as called upon to bark at the door and scare the UPS driver.  Work is something of value to the dog's owner .. if you want to do IPO and train your dog to do that it is work to those owners but it is no more of a definition of work than the dog doing AKC obedience or AKC Agility.  A working dog is not always a dog with a title nor are the biting sports the definition of work.

Susie, what do you mean with "you need to find a workingdog breeder who cares for conformation"? Are you saying that a working GSD should look more like a showdog or what details should a workingdog breeder look for when it comes to structure and conformation? I mean there are still GSDs who have a normal shape that was favoured in the majority of the breeds history. Hopefully there are still breeders who can see a good dog regardless the titles the dog has, it´s almost like people seems to belive if the dog has a sporttitle then it can´t produce real dogs, and if it´s a real dog that can be used for police or a number of jobs then it´s a nutty dog who is dangerous and can´t fit into a family when not working . 

Well, OK then, HD. I guess the beat really will go on since no show or sport GSD owner I know is going away any time soon either and I think there are a lot more of them than you. Carry on, dear.

Bubba, in case there is no difference between AKC obedience/agility and IPO/SchH - WHY are a lot of dogs and breeds not able to participate in this "sport"?

Johan, I´m simply talking about the standard - that said a "G" rated dog is breedworthy - but there are a lot of workinglines, who don´t even deserve to achieve a "G" rating.
I´m not talking about over the top conformation, just standard. I know that at this point a lot of people will disagree

Susie, any examples of dogs who don´t deserve a G rating, would for example utz who max favoured not deserve a G rating?

My point is "intelligence and utility"  .. there are many types of work and work should be defined as what pleases the dog's owner and serves the needs of the owner.  IPO is work for the owner who wants an IPO dog for competition or as bragging rights ie "my dog has every IPO title".  For the person doing AKC obedience that can be work and for the KNPV or Ring Sport enthusiast that can be work.  For the GSD owner that needs a dog to protect his children and scare the FedEX delivery person .. if that is what the owner needs then that is work.  Inclusion is better than exclusion.  Trying to force everyone to bend to the will of the SV and their definition of work is clearly a poor strategy as every year the SV has fewer members and the WUSV has fewer members, and the IPO world if growing (which it is not) is growing with other breeds such as the Mal becoming more dominant in the sport.  Owning a GSD in order to participate in some dog sport is clearly not what the majority of the 5 million GSD owner in the USA have in mind.  The SV is as much a marketing organization as a breed organization.

Johan, Stephanitz had a vision, but no breed, when he started.
A dog like Utz was perfect for the way he wanted to go with the new breed ( he was the beginning of the "modern" type )
Although this dog (according to Stephanitz own breed standard ) was not at all the goal, he was a way to reach the goal. That´s a major difference.

"Owning a GSD in order to participate in some dog sport is clearly not what the majority of the 5 million GSD owner in the USA have in mind."
4.9 millions of them shouldn´t own a working dog breed at all - but that´s not limited to the United States.

Johan.

Stephanitz had a vision, let's say a design, that he wanted to reach and achieve, this vision could not be achieved immediately or in a few years only, he worked hard to reach it in his own time, in my opinion he did not achieve it and left it to others to achieve it. Please note he never described a single GSd as his complete vision that should be copied and not developed any more. Dogs were rated at his time comparative to what was available. Compared to what later became available in the 80s, most of those dogs at his time do not deserve G, neither ( H , assuminig there was lesser rating).