Fritz Biehler question - Page 2

I agree with Susie and share her doubts regarding Fritz Biehler and, any other top trainer wasting their time trying to train dogs with inherent temperament faults. Can you imagine how many dogs these trainers would go through just trying to find one dog that can go the distance.

When it comes to using a dog in a mating with inherent temperament faults, whether the dog is for work or show, it has no value to the breed. We have already read many times on the PDB comments on the decline of the character in the breed. IMO this problem is just exacerbated by the breeders using these animals and is just irresponsible breeding. The breed itself comes before any red cards and titles.

Mackenzie

I was very involved in Schutzhund in the 80s and Kanto vd Strothheide was "the show dog" that Fritz Biehler showed in the Bundesseiger x2. I'm pretty sure that Kanto was the only showlines dog that he ever did the Bundesseiger with. Mr. Biehler was known at that time for Enno and Drigon, two tough dogs that produced generations of dogs with similar traits - these were dogs that probably wouldn't be allowed to live now. They were very different dogs compared to Kanto and Kanto was definitely looked down upon by the serious Schutzhund competitors of the day. There was lots of whispering in the Schutzhund world about the Fritz/Kanto pairing, how he did it to prove his training skill, etc.. I don't know if that's true or not - I'm just saying that was the gossip at the time. I saw a video of Fritz and Kanto and I was oh so impressed. I was so impressed that after Kanto was sold to the states (a show dog that was competed by Biehler!), I met Kanto and bought a daughter of his. Kanto was unimpressive in the bitework and he produced a good handful of shy dogs here in the states, dogs that would literally run from friendly strangers. The daughter that I owned was terribly shy and I was asked to evaluate several other Kanto kids that ended up in Michigan who had the same fault. He was used by several of the big show line breeders of the time, I remember Jane Steffenhagen touting his arrival and convinced a friend of mine to breed her Lasso di Val Sole grdaughter to him. But he was only used once by the most of them because of how he produced the shyness so consistently - hence the legend of how he was a weak dog made into a contender by the magical Mr. Biehler.

Somewhere I have a picture of myself with 2 Kanto vd Strothheide kids, a son and a daughter. They were both over a year old and I'm trying to touch the male in the picture but he won't let me. I'll see if I can dig it up.

I remember that era..

Didn't Larry Filo breed to it.. like ONCE, and never again??

He'd probably remember it well.

Back then, there was a lot of talk about avoiding the "Canto/Quanto" cross..  Kanto was linebred on both.

 

Jane S. and her 3k puppies.. back then even...