Just Curious, Where the ASL people at - Page 12

"Showline people and Working line people have a different definition of what a good dog is. It's two different worlds."

and what does the standard say about two different worlds?

in fact people talk about two lines as if it is somehow intrinsic to the breed. there is only one breed called the GSD as far as I know yet breeders keep pushing their biases on the general public as if they had a mandate from God.

buyers have been forced into a false dichotomy by breeders trying to stand out in the market by selecting for extremes, buyers can be forgiven to some extent because they just want a healthy sound dog.

as for beauty mentioned, the vast majority of dog owners out their do not think showlines a beautiful, they think they are hideous mutants, do you people not listen to anything besides each other?

As for the ideal of beauty and the SL, one automatically considers its coat as opposed to the beauty of a WL, which comes from its economy of form.

I agree in the one breed GSD ideal and it's leeway built in with variety from its origins. True! It is the breeders looking for exclusivity that keep pushing for a divide. 👍🏻

vk4 has a huge point. When I get a call from someone inexperienced, just looking for a pet, without a clue as to why my dogs are any different, they invariably say they do NOT want a "slanting back" or "steep slope" like a "show dog." He's right- they want a healthy dog in body and mind.

That is just utterly misleading! Neither of the feuding lines can claim to be free from health or temperament issues. Way to go, to confuse things! Ugh. 

Your dogs aren't different. They are within the norm or you should quit breeding.

On what planet do you reside? I can hardly even decode some of your diction lately, but I'll take a stab at it.

I hate to break this to you, "Beetree" (whoever you really are), but MOST of the GSDs in the world, MOST of what the public thinks of in terms of GSDs, are *not* like mine. They are *not* Euro working lines. MOST of the GSDs that John Q. Public is familiar with are show lines or American pet lines. This is evidenced by the folks who look at working lines or my dogs in particular and say they prefer a "real German Shepherd," the ones who ask what they're mixed with, the ones who say they're the wrong colors and can't be purebred, the ones who think blacks are Lab mixes, the ones who say they're too small, etc.

The general American public is NOT familiar with working lines as a whole. It's still very much a niche market. If it's not black and tan or black and red, they often don't recognize it. Look how many working lines in rescues are labeled mixes when they're clearly pure working line dogs.

My dogs are the "norm." Nighttime cocktails talking, I hope. LOL

When do we accept that there is a split in the breed?

There are FOUR major splits.

German Showlines
German Working Lines
American Showlines
American 150 pound Backyardbred Pet Lines

And thats not speaking off the obvious differences between Czech, DDR, Slovak, West German Working Lines.

Yes, it's one breed standard but we have the frickin splits and that will NEVER change!
It's gone so far that they are genetically not even the same dog anymore.

Either we accept, work with it and move on, or we will never move forward.

The general public doesn't know this, however what the general public perceives as a real GSD is a 150 pound backyard bred straight backed "American Sheppard" monstrosity that has very little to do with the breed to begin with. So lets not get into what Pet People prefer because they think their overweight 150 pound dog is pure muscles and will eat you because he's so protective. 

I've got my own small training facility and every day, every single day I get calls about German Shepherd Dogs. You wouldn't believe how dumbfounded most people are when they see a dog that's actually a true German Shepherd Dog with solid nerves and temperaments. People believe that the Shepherd has to be "protective" and "aggressive" without realizing that they are talking about fear aggression and that this is exactly what their dog exhibits.

You can see it everywhere, read through German Shepherd Pet Groups on Facebook, meet the dogs that are out there.

It drives me crazy when people say "It's one breedstandard"
The split exists, it's there, it's not going away!
There are Showlines and Working Lines, American Showlines and those Pet Lines we see on a daily basis. It is what it is. I've come to accept it and quite frankly, it makes life a whole lot easier.

it does not make it easier for the casual dog owner who have every right to enjoy a happy, healthy sound, stable dog like anyone else.

what would be the most obvious, honest and simplest no fuss solution would be to do like other breeds and re-name similar to the Spitz and several Terrier breeds.

these people that have formalised the divergences all went through their breed wars and resolved the issues with a rename and a new stud-book/s, now they live happily alongside each other.

we have the genetic proof now that this is justified in the gsd (barenfang might post the article showing this).

personally I have no real commitment to the the concept of closed stud books, it is a very modern concept and has historically failed. breed originators of every stripe never adhered to a closed stud-book and did just fine. horse people in particular have no problem opening and closing stud books whenever it benefits the breed as a whole.

 

the dalmation is a fine example of the failure of closed books and the hysterical and unethical nature of breeders that would keep them closed and knowingly and deliberately breeding chronic illnesses. the pointer/dal experiment PROVED this. frankly it is paramount to sustain breeders that such practices are not known to the public, hell the US even has an Ag Gag enshrined in law to keep the public ignornat to save so many industries from the consumer backlash the facts would bring.

It's never going to happen! The SV will never allow it. As for the general public, so long they want a 200 dollar dog they will get what they pay for. I'm sorry but I don't feel bad for these type of people. There are three types of buyers. Those that want a dog for next to nothing and don't care where the dog comes from and those that do their actual research. And then you have the Rescue Buyer....that "adopts" those poor babies and has no issues dishing out 3000 dollars for a petstore dog and calls it a Rescue but will demonize any responsible breeder for charging 1500 dollars and will call you a breed snob. 

You aren't breaking any news to me with your current sell job. I don't have to swallow your kool-aide. Your personal attacks don't affect me, either. They are rather desperate, instead...J.

Oh, there are more than 4 splits - not really sure how you are defining 'major' - that depends on where you are viewing from.

In the UK and to an extent the 'rest of Europe' - Ireland, Italy, France, Holland, Belgium, and the whole Scandinavian block - BE would need to extend that list.

We have: West German dogs (from that portion of the SV's control which is still the 'whole GSD', Showable but with IPO / herding ); other German and eastern bloc dogs of mainly 'working' lines, a very few of which trickle into view. Maybe, from posts here - IF indicative of real saturation - more of those are in Holland & Belgium than anywhere else on my extended list.

The (W) German dogs still being imported by the UK and Ireland (and others ^) and used as a base for in-house breeding plans, often combined with lines that have been home-bred for some generations, form a majority of our 'showdogs' and, still for now at least, of our working lines also. There are working kennels importing eastern block working-lines dogs, but the numbers of those are still 'a drop in the ocean' when you tally total imports.

We also have: a limited population of 'Alsatians' - older style Show stock, originally from German imports, taken in one developmental direction (longer, lower, shorter legged, straighter backed) by breeders since the 1960s, once in the ascendency in the "Show Scene", but now virtually a closed population, circling the same genetics, with limited addition of new blood. Which is where you will find just about the only examples of ASL type coming in - the import of which has happened occasionally, in an effort to inject that 'new blood'. The majority are sold as pets; but the average British pet buyer would not recognise what was meant by 'ASL' type, even if it put its paws in their faces.

Of course a big proportion of our Showlines are sold primarily as pets, too.
Those retained for Show and breeding (whether or not BH, AD, IPO are made part of that package) tend (not exclusively, but in the main) to be dogs from, or based on, German dogs which do NOT have the excesses of the worst toplines, the extreme curves, the mid-way 'hinges', the hock-walking over angulation of the hind legs. I suspect this is because, over here, if you buy direct from Germany, you go and see them in Germany. So you can look at what you are buying in the flesh, get to know breeders, make better choices.

There are some brilliant dogs in Ireland. There are quite a few pretty good ones here in the UK. Some of which go back across the Channel to compete.

And then there is the whole issue of how a dog LOOKS when pushed and prodded into certain poor 'stances', set against how much less distorted they appear when allowed to stand naturally. Don't forget the emphasis put on this in recent WUSV communications.

So, many of ours do not look all that very different from many American 'working' dogs; even taking the majority Red&Black colouring into account. And we have an increasing number of black and grey dogs in the repertoire, even where they go as pets rather than into the Showrings.

America isn't 'the World'.