Vote for work or show - Page 4

gefauhr- I assume by your mention of AKC you are referring to AKC champions? "Dragging hips, no drive, scared of its own shadow" sure as hell does not describe my dogs, nor does it describe many of the West German dogs I know. I invite you to come on up to Chicago anytime, suit up and see what a show dog can do.

Interesting how you mention how friendly working enthusiasts are...I've met a few that were quite arrogant and downright rude the moment I mention I had showline dogs.  There are nasty and nice people in every group.

Posts like yours are exactly what I mean when I talked about blanket statements.

I have put AKC championship on 3 dogs all three different breeds.  Having been involved in schutzhund since 1989, 5 trips to Germany,  I think I have seen quite a few varieties, of GSDs.  The fact is the GSD is a WORKING dog not a SHOW dog, breeding for vanity is self defeating.  A fact which cannot be denied.

You missed very important part, as I stated, there are exceptions, and that was MY experience, it was in no way a blanket statment, please read the entire post not just the words you want to be able to take statements out of contex.

bump

Really? In the other thread you basically called show people stupid. Apparently you and I have different opnions on what a blanket statement is. "Show people are on a quest to ruin the breed'. Sounds pretty cut and dry to me.

How about a vote for letting the subject drop! It's always the same crap...Work vs. Show.

To each his/her own...why keep instigating,it ALWAYS has the same end.

From what i gather is that most of the above posts have been placed by workingline owners that keep on reminding show line owners that show dogs cannot work. Do you guys ever heard of the fact that a show dog in order to compete for beauty has to bite first? Are you aware of the fact that you simply cannot breed unless your dogs have Korung? Have you never heard of a showline being in the service with the police,firebrigade,airport security,etc,etc? And how many of you guys 'work' with your working lines , like in hearding sheep, or search and rescue or whatever. I own more than ten showlines and at any one time keep here at my house minimum 5. I invite anyone that wants to intrude or do strange behaviour in my presence or not, to come and have a try with my dogs around. Then if he lives through his experience he can come back with a new post about the nerves and the drive of showlines. Sure there are bad dogs out there as I am sure there are useless working lines. But please DO NOT GENERALISE. Just out of info our police department uses dogs trained by the R.A.F. and guess what. Not only are they showline some of the best dogs they use are also longhairs. So please enough of these b.s. about showlines. I would think that working line world simply has done very little if anything to improve the appearence of the dogs. I simply cannot train a dog if I dont like it. And I have heard of a lot of other people involved with training that feel the same. Explain please how do you think that improving on the looks of the W.L. will adversly affect their working ability? There are some very beautiful W.L. dogs out there, and yes if the anatomy is correct their colour comes very last. In fact if anatomically a sable is correct it looks even prettier than a showline. I fail to see how a beautiful W.L. male for example if mated to a correct good looking breeding W.L. female their pups would be with less working qualities than their parents just because their conformation and anatomy and all looks good.

So i think those of you working with W.L. dogs if you put the same ammount of effort and time with a well chosen showline you will be surprised that it also is a true G.S.D. 100% only prettier.

ok, here goes another can of worms.

I have a working line dog who is advanced FEMA certified as an urban disaster dog. That means he finds people trapped in collapsed structures. Be it tornadoes, earth quakes, etc. He is also therapy certified,CGC and ofa  hips and elbows . PLUS his sister  ( twin v. Kleyn Hammer) has competed and placed well on the ukraine team at the WSUV.

He is a Youshy grandson. So, why is it that no one wants to breed to a dog who presumebly has it all.?

All that a shepherd is suppoded to have/be. He's also handsome but I am kennel blind.

How's that for opening a can of worms????????????????

let the arrows be flung!

KCzaja

Still not a blanket statement, once again you only take part of the statement and out of contex, reading only what you want to suit your needs.  First the blanket statement was the friendliness of working vs show enthusiasts, now its the quest to ruin the breed.  Once again out of contex.  The fact is breeding and animal for VANITY is self defeating, When looks are the primary concern rather than the true function of the dog, temperment, drive for the work, etc is a quest to ruin a working not a looking dog. 

Actually, K9sar, I was talking to another friend about this very topic recently.  Take a look at the top working line dogs in the sport.  The ones that are heavily campaigned, breed surveyed, every ones heard of them the whole ball of wax, but then there is never many breedings. It's relatively small in this  country, compared to European workers.   I think this could have to do with a smaller gene pool here,  combined with the lack of knowing just who the good males are here, also many people still prefer to take their bitches back to Germany for breeding, regardless of what quality dogs are here. 

ATARTHS:  I agree that people should not say all show line dogs can't work.  Many are excellent and as you mentioned you can sometimes even find them working in the real world (military, police etc..).  So why aren't show line breeders doing the work with them?    I would like to see show line breeders who place more emphasis on the working ability of their dogs out there trialing their dogs.  Why do so many stop as soon as they have  the obligatory title instead of campaigning them on the field?  With many it's as if working ability is an after thought or just some necessary evil.  Sometimes it seems as if as long as the dog saunters to the decoy and takes a little taste of the sleeve, they are very happy with that performance so long as the dog isn't chased completely off the field.  I think we need to require more of the dogs in our breeding programs.

Even though I am a working line person, I know our dogs aren't perfect either.  We need to work on conformation issues such as the really straight shoulders and short, steep croups.  The difference is the breed is supposed to be a working dog first, the work should never be sacrificed.