Character of the German Shepherd Dog - Page 9

Agree with Gustav; nice post !

Gustav, my problem is that nobody is able to know if a dog will become an "important" stud or not, until this stud was bred for at least 3 years with different females out of different bloodlines.

Vello wasn´t famous for his working abilities first and foremost, but for his outlook, although he was oversized...I think together with some others he is responsible for the oversize in our breed. People used him although he was too big - they liked him ...

He is responsible for a lot of good dogs, and he is responsible for a lot of oversized dogs - but honestly, in case he wouldn´t have been bred, breeders would have used other studs, and for sure these studs would have been responsible for other influential / great siblings. We will never know...

My point simply is that there are that much German Shepherd Dogs out there, that we don´t need to use "faulty" dogs, be them "faulty" in case of temperament or conformation.

In my opinion, there is a lot of interpretation of correct temperament of the breed. Even working ability, most people don’t agree on what is important and how it should be tested. Although we have a breed test, the requirements aren’t the highest and on paper a dog that gets a 70 looks just like a dog that gets a 95. Even the way the dog works gets judged and ripped apart, not just by judges, but by the public at large. Not enough prey, too much prey, no aggression, too much aggression, ect. If there is subjectivity in the temperament portion, there’s no reason there can’t be any in the conformation. If the dog has something special to offer, you can’t dismiss it’s worth based on a centimeter or two. Now…if we’re talking grossly oversized, that should be taken into consideration, and I’m sure the majority of breeders would look at that and see if it was something they want to do. But a small difference? Doesn’t seem right to dismiss a dog over that.

Forgot to mention:

The use of Vello clearly showed a "tendency" - even in the fifties people liked and still like "big, strong" dogs, seems to be in our nature, but during the same time a lot of people forget about agility/working ability and health.

"Our" breed ( in case of conformation ) was created to be a working dog breed ( based on real shepherd dogs ), very agile, very persistent, the perfect trotter.
A dog "willing to work" but "not able to work" conformation wise in real life is not better than a dog "able to work" but "not willing to work" temperament wise.

As someone who handled and saw a lot of different dogs during the AD trial I can tell you that neither overseized nor too heavy dogs do fit the breed standard ( as don´t overangulated nor underangulated dogs ).

There often is a difference between our personal preferences and the breed standard ( and this statement includes owners, breeders, and judges ).

Bav, we are talking about "huge" dogs, not about a centimeter.

15.000 German Shepherd Dogs currently bred in my country / year. How many in your country / year? West Europe? East Europe?

Don´t tell me that only the heavily oversized dogs do have that special trait a breeder is looking for...

We are lying to ourselves - we like the stud, we own the female, the puppies are easy to sell, and so on...

Perhaps we should retitle this topic "Character of the German Shepherd Dog BREEDER". I wish there was some way of ensuring that only people of good judgement and with the interests of the breed at heart would be able to mate them and produce / sell puppies ! Of course it is right that a dog who is just a little oversize but who is very correct in all other aspects of both temperament and physical attributes ought to be bred from, but at least with the proviso that the opp. sex partner is NOT also oversized; but unless we have some universal and draconian way of dictating that, we are reliant on the goodwill and common sense of breeders everywhere, so we are always going to carry with us that proportion of people who think it is okay to breed dogs with massive heads and/or body structure, who will unhesitatingly put a large dog to a large bitch and think there is nothing wrong in doing so.  Just because they can.   As the owner until a year ago of a dog who stood 66.5 cm, I feel this really personally !

For sure the character of the breeder does create the character of his/her dogs...

Every breeder needs to learn how to distinguish between a "good dog" and a "breedworthy dog".

A lot of people feel personally attacked when told their beloved dog shouldn´t be bred - I never understood why. I loved all of my dogs, but not all of them would have been breedworthy.

Maybe I think so, because in Germany we are used to breed restrictions.
For us it´s daily routine to raise a dog, train a dog, and then be told "not suitable for breeding".
No discussion, no option - we just move on.

I bred my bitch who is 25". I bred her to a male who is within standard. Out of 16 puppies, three are oversized (two dogs, one bitch). One male is 26.25ish, another is 26.5-27, and the bitch is 24.75. The oversized bitch is still smaller than her mother.

I can go an inch either way on the standard, personally. There are bigger problems. And we will always be breeding faulty dogs to other faulty dogs...that's what breeding is. If there was a perfect dog we could, y'know...stop.

Sure there are bigger problems, but the more oversized dogs are bred, the bigger the breed as a whole becomes - and that´s a major problem.
There are no "perfect" dogs, but the goal should be to breed dogs with as much advantages as possible, and to the same time as few disadvantages as possible.
Right now we are talking about seize, but the discussion could be about health, teeth, testicles, color, temperament, working ability, too - no difference.
There is always an excuse for someone who wants to breed.

I was more so referring to the breed survey. I think a judge can pass a dog that is within a cm or so of the standard. Once you get over that, you're pushing it. In my country, very few dogs are breed surveyed anyways and you can breed without it, so if people think their dog won't pass, they just won't do one and breed anyways.

I definitely agree with you about the size thing. I personally prefer dogs that are closer to the middle and further from the top of the standard. For a bitch, the smaller the better. As a helper, and a handler, I see the benefits of "smaller" dogs. I prefer them. I also see the direct correlation with size and drive loss. A large dog, with tons of drive is a rarity and almost a unicorn. The majority of large dogs I see, definitely have way less drive than a similar lined dog which is smaller/within standard. I've seen very very few dogs over the breed standard that have had what I would consider national/world level drive. It's proven to me that the SV knew what they were talking about when they decided on size standards in regards to a working dog.

As an example...I currently handle a dog who is within standard. He has a litter mate who is definitely pushing the top of the standard. Both dogs are actively trained in IPO, but mine has 10 times the drive the litter mate does. Some of it is training, some of it is just the difference in the dogs themselves, but the drive levels are so far apart its hard to believe they come from the same litter sometimes.