Longhaired GSDs Out of Shorthaired? - Page 1

How are people getting longhaired GSD pups out of dogs that are shorthaired for 5 or more generations? I can't help but wonder how strong the gene really is for longhair that it can pop up out of nowhere. Are people falsifying the pedigrees maybe? Maybe the puppies are mutts. Has anyone else come across these mysterious longhaired pups out of strictly shorthaired lines and can tell me how they came to be? How did we even get longhaired GSDs in the first place? I've looked back on the first several generations of founding GSDs and they all seem to be very short coated. I'm really curious about longhairs as I've also thought of them as beautiful dogs, but I've noticed they really look like they should be a completely different breed. Sometimes I find it hard to even see how they are GSDs. If fact many longhaired GSDs look like Leonbergers except for the ears.

Normally - i'd say GOOGLE IT !!  but since you're asking -- here's a very short answer:

The Long Hair gene is RECESSIVE --- there are many normal coated GSD's walking around with a recessive for LH.

When 2 "short/normal" hairled dogs BOTH carry the recessive and they meet up in a given puppy --  You get a LONG HAIR --  it's kinda simple. 

some people think that Long Hairs have better conformation (compared to littermates)  underneath all that hair ---- the SV has approved separate classes for LH as of 2010? or 11?  apparently this may soon be merged into the regular classes.  and they can have their own stud book now too. 

The foundation stock that developed the German Shepherd Dog that you see today included long haired "sheep dogs" and early on - there were also some "wire-haired"  coats -- if not careful - breeding stock can be overwhelmed with  this gene - and  the percentage of LH pups per litter can be as low as less than 10% or as high as 50% or more.  My current puppy came from a litter of 8 and there were 3 coats --  so thats 37.5% by my calculator -- and there are certainly no long haired dogs in his pedigree ----  but many of them probably had littermates who were coated !! 

Today, I believe you can do DNA testing to see if your dog carries the LH gene.  some breeders avoid it like the plague-- others don't care if they get 2-3 coats per litter -- and some breed a coated dog on purpose hoping to improve structure - or to pass on other good traits --- they figure they can "fix" the coat problem with the next generation.


does that help? 

 

I have a LH 6 month old pup, and looking back in his pedigree all I see are short coats, except 3 dogs that don't have photos included on their pedigrees. So it is very strong gene. I went back 5 generations on his dams side and there were no longcoats to be found there.
If you want to look at this pedigree just for your "inquiring mind" feel free, on here, named Bacq von haus Mills.

Long hair is a recessive gene, and recessive genes are very, very, very sneaky.    Recessive genes are why we still deal with genetic diseases like hip dysplacia, despite many, many generations of testing hips and only breeding dogs with good hips.  

Long hair recessive genes were present from the very beginning of the GSD breed, coming from the myriad of herding mutts in Germany that were used to create the breed.  

A gene isn't "strong" or "weak"  a gene is a gene is a gene....and genes are either recessive or dominant or incomplete recessive or incomplete dominant.  The phenotype traits that a dog is born with are caused by genes, polygenes and RNA switches in the DNA.   For simple genes, each creature is either heterozygous or homozygous for a trait.   In regards to the shorthair dogs that produce longhairs...those shorthair dogs are heterozygous.  

Long hair isn't the only example of a recessive trait that comes out of many generations that did not select for a recessive trait...there are hundreds of other recessive traits that do this too. 

Also, what those pedigrees often don't tell you, is how many long hair pups (or other recessive gene'd pup) was produced in each generation by those short haired progenitors.  

It's easy to lose a dominant gene, it's very, very difficult to lose a recessive gene.  

i will put this as simple as i can -
when you have a female that carries the coated gene and a male that carries the coated gene, you can get coated pups, no matter what coat type the parents are, both parents have to carry the coated gene to get coated pups, but if one parents does not carry the coated gene you will never  get a coated pup.
so if a stud never produces a coated pups say for 20 litters and on the 21st litter one pops up , that cause the female is also a carrier.
and most of the others females he bred to were not carriers.

i have a  male that came from  a litter  of 5 pups and had a sister that was coated and parents were stock coats  and my male is also a stock coat , i got him tested and he does not carry the coated gene, so it just depends on what the dog  carries from the parents.  its really very simple-
coats have been around from the start , you just never hear about them just like the brindle . there is nothing wrong with LC-

Thanks for all the info everyone. I guess that answers all my questions, but feel free to add on if you wish.

Are there any working/temperament tendencies in Long Coats? Any other characteristics "bundled" with the long hair gene? SV would probably make the breed a favor if they start allowing more of the cosmetic differences, in favor or bigger gene pool.

In addition to what everyone else said, when you look at the SV pedigrees you only see stock coated dogs because the long coat was considered a significant fault for many years so they couldn't be bred or registered under the SV. The long coated pups showed up in litters fairly often, but the were either culled or sold without papers. The SV now has a separate registry for the LC, but this only came about a few years ago.  The reason the SV banned the LC for a period of time is unclear. I've heard that it was all political and I've also heard there was a misconception that all the long coated dogs had no undercoat, which is entirely untrue. Anyway, the Long coats are back and I am glad! 

Many breeds carry the LC gene recessively. It's acceptable in some breeds, some not depending on their breed standard.  The only only difference in the gene pool of a LC vs a stockhair GSD is that particular gene and the modifiers that go with it. LC's have no more chance of having better conformation, more substance, a better temperament, etc than their stockhaired siblings and vice versa. I've owned a LC myself and as far as I can tell the only reason to avoid one is they are not the dog for the lazy man since they require a lot more grooming.

If you are planning to work the dog out of doors in a wet and/or cold climate, IMO the texture of the coat is more important than the length. Long, soft coats will probably result in dogs that soak up water like sponges, take forever to dry, mat, and form ice balls in their coats and between their pads. In today's world that won't be a big deal, but at one time shepherds were probably not wanting GSD's with long, soft coats; too much maintenance and not a survival characteristic.