Structure Critique - Page 3

Mr Donald, 

You have more than enough-for-you  experience and knowledge, so it might not be that important for you but it is very important for me and many others, it is a chance to learn from you and please take into consideration that English is not my 1st language and sometimes what I say isn't very clear to everyone, also please be as direct as you wish, learning the right thing is what really matters to me and I wouldn't be ashamed if I'm making a mistake, here is what I'm saying, the subject dog's skull plane is parallel to his muzzle's plane and this is a good feature of the subject dog.
As a matter of fact this specific trait of GSD was brought to my attention from your study when you talked about domed and out of parallel heads, and here I quote you

 Heads The heads are the same in fi gure 1 and fi gure 2  and depicted as  being close to the ideal but I do reiterate my earlier comment  about the strength of heads and relationship to the teeth.The  old adage that says ‘show me a dog that has a refi ned head  and throws refi ned heads and I will show you missing and  underdeveloped teeth’ stands true.  I have also observed quite a few dogs, generally males and  interestingly nearly always associated with a distinctly  masculine head, where the planes of the skull and foreface  are out of alignment, out of parallel, creating a dish faced  appearance – see photo. Given this, I have to say that I found  it both curious and surprising that the Standard’s requirement  Figure 1 Figure 2 © 2011 Louis C Donald A Discussion Paper on the Structure of the German Shepherd Dog 7 for parallel planes of the skull and foreface has been deleted  from the most current Standard - December 2010 SV / FCI  /VDH.

On a final point I mention that people should keep an eye on skulls that are too round, almost apple shaped. This can be seen not just when viewed from the front of the dog between it’s ears but in side profile End of quote

And you used two pictures of two dogs to highlight "out of parallel and domed heads" but I couldn't copy those pictures. I find it easier to determine whether the two planes are parallel or not when dog's mouth is closed like in below diagram. But subject dog doesn't have a domed head and he is not out of parallel, if I'm mistaken please correct me and Nadeem excuse me for using your dog for a learning purpose.


The cranio-facial axes (cranial axis AB and facial axis CD) are parallel in the German Shepherd. Any deviation from the parallelism represents a defect of varying degree. The right cranio-facial ratio is 1:1

Perfect! Nice to hear your comments and I appreciate them. Pleased that you have read my paper on structure. Not an easy read but worth the effort.
Half the questions I see being put in this forum are answered there.
Just as a matter of interest the two heads I used are current VA dogs.
Keep well Ibriham and always maintain your open minded and non combative attitude.

Louis

This pic might be more helpful since his mouth is closed.  And no worries on using my dog for ullustrative purposes Ibrahim, i enjoy the learning experience especially with my own dog. 

And very interesting article Louis Donald, i downloaded it and hope to read it soon.

Mr. Donald,

I read your paper 4 times, I spent long hours making sure I understand the diagrams and illustrations, I now memorize by heart several parts of it, it is a great thorough sincere study, I find the best part the one where you explained the front parts and front reach with special appraise for the role of front arm length, no one did this before I think, in a scientific/engineering way, you've done an excellent compilation of findings, info, analysis and results and you corrected some of misunderstood things, not only those misunderstood by the average person but the dog experts, I find your explanation how the angles of shoulder should be correctly represented and measured the most accurate, many experts do not agree how they should be measured, I think your knowledge of dogs in general gives you a plus in understanding the GSD as a specific dog breed.
Still remains for me how to correctly apply the theoritical knowledge practically on the dog, I am working on that and tell you what I'm enjoying myself.

Ibrahim

Thanks Nadeem for the additional picture

Ibrahim, the theoritical knowledge  can only be learned by seeing and doing.

best to you and your quest,
Rik

Thanks, Rik, just to let you know, you remember how you explained to me how to feel and check by hand the bones and joints of the shoulder? Combining that with Mr. Donald's shoulder diagram I now  can represent the bones and joints by using tape on the dog's shoulder to a very very good degree of accuracsy, lol. The sad thing is very few dogs come close to a good shoulder.

Ibrahim

Ibrahim here is a theoretical way of understanding what happens in the forehand in relation to the shoulder and upperarm during movement;

Cut up some 15/20mm wide cardboard strips that are the length of the ideal scapula/upperarm/foreleg. Cut their length to the actual scale of say a 64cm dog.You can work out these lengths from my paper.Then pin them onto a pin board using pins and set them at the ideal angles of 45 and 53 degrees. Refering to my paper make a mark where the fore foot would land in such an ideal configuration. You can rotate the parts to simulate various changes but you can also make some new strips that are cut shorter to represent a short upperarm, short shoulder and short foreleg.
You can overlay these onto the ideal.
The value of this is best demonstarted as follows; I ask you the 'theoretical' question - if you had two dogs that were both anatomically identical but one  had a correctly angled upperarm that was 10% short of ideal and one had an upperarm that was of the correct length but 10 degrees less than the ideal which dog would you place first on the basis of you being a judge who uses as a fundamental benchmark the principle that the GSD is a working, trotting endurance dog? I would suggest like many people you would not 'know' the answer. You might well try to work it out in your head or give an answer based on what your gut tells you but I am talking about 'knowing the answer as a fact'. If you don't know the answer now you will and not only on this question but you can now configure all sorts of fore hand situations - short fore leg, steep shoulder, forward placed shoulder, steep upperarm etc etc and actually calculate in quantifiable terms the reduction in fore reach.
Oh I must add - for those who may want to jump in to say something like; this doesn't account for things such as the dogs willingness to run - we know that - or what if the dog had hip dysplasia' or 'what if he is blind in one eye' - please don't! Just read the intro.

Louis


  

Very interesting, I need sometime.

This is my theoretical answer,

I would place the one which had correct length of upper arm but 10% steeper angle than ideal (the 10% makes a 5.3 degree making the front upper arm angle 58.5) as it can cover better reach than the one which had correct angle bet 10% lesser length of upper arm than ideal.

Increasing the angle of forearm (making it steeper) has lesser negative effect on the reach than decreasing the length of front upper arm but that is true to a certain amount, after too much steepening of the angle then no matter how much you increase the front upper arm length you can not have good reach as that of correct equilibrum between angle & length of upper arm. That is theoretically when judging a working dog for better trot and reach, if one considers breeding and genetics aspects I am not sure which is more difficult to produce good length of upper arm or good angle . When I find a clip board I will try the strip experiment. 

Ibrahim