Breeding to Scores!! - Page 2

Trafalgar, You are correct to a degree. With me SchH scores are a starting point only. The politics of the breed in Germany have led to many of the problems before us. Dr. Helmut Raiser in Germany has been pointing this out for some time now and is actively trying to do something about it. I also understand your point and it is difficult when you don not know somebody personally and what they are trying to accomplish in their breeding program. I typically do not advertise my pups and most are sold by word of mouth or to people who have been dealing with me for many years and know what I produce. I did not say low scores are are a sign of a better dog, I said they can be. Even in our working lines  we need to restrengthen the breed to where it was in the 70's and earlier. Then you saw many VA dogs that produced very solid working dogs as well as the typical working line dogs. It is a dilemma that we all face as the sport keeps changing and more and more emphasis goes to top scores and weakened tests in the sport. They now want to do away completely with the courage test and how will this help restrengthen our breed if we lose this watered down test? We are fighting for this not to occur but politics are politics and there is not much we can do about them except to voice our opposition. As a trainer of many police K9's I see the weakening of our breed over the years. It is more and more difficult to find a German Shepherd that can handle the stress, do all of the work with drive and yet be stable enough to do demo's and be able to live with, to not stress our over strange things, etc. In 1986, in Denmark , the second place dog freaked out over a small stuffed animal being placed on the podium near it and it had to be removed. Now this is the second place dog in what, today is equivelent to our World Championship and yet his temperament was extremely flawed but by your evaluation, he should be bred to because he was the Second Place dog there. That's why seeing the dog in strange environments and around strange things is so important today.  You can have a dog that does absolutely fantastice on any field and yet can't handle any strange situations away from it. I see this all of the time as I am constantly testing and evaluating dogs for police work and or breeding programs. One of the best dogs I have ever owned came to me as a very young police prospect from Germany and no formal training. In two weeks of testing I knew he was something special and so did anybody that saw him. When we decided to keep him at that point, my Fiance decided she would try to title him because I do believe in Schutzhund enough that all of my dogs must be titled in order to be bred. In one year she put the SchH 1-3 on him, received V2 in conformtaion and KKL-1. Were her scores pretty, no but she was learning and she was doing it with a very stroing male. She has had a number of Judges comment in critiques on his strength and to tell us that he was for breeding, not for sport as he was too strong for her. Another Judge commented to the crowd about our old point system and how another SchH3 was pronounced but that Chico was a true 10 in his courage. Now with experience she is trying for the Nationals this year. Not with hopes of winning but when people see this dog, they know he is something special. 

Larry Filo,I agree with you a 100 %.My concern is that as the sport continues to change,people's breeding qualifications begin to change also,which leads to a different German Shepherd altogether.The dogs of old seemed to have had a higher degree of aloofness,stability,and stronger nerve.It seems to me that if people continue breeding to scores per say and not elauate the dog off the field,then in return we will continue to see a gradual yet cosistent fall in the true character of the German Shepherd.

Kreigr, It is something that we have been watching happen for several decades now and it is very concerning. It is more and more difficult each year to find dogs capable of doing all of the work that a Police K9 is expected to do in this day and age. It is the nerves, stability and character that are slowly being lost due to many of our breeding practices. Much of this is due to the changes in schutzhund rules over the years. Tracking, obedience and protection rules have all changed over the years as schutzhund became more and more of a sport and less and less about overall breedworthiness. It is still important as a starting point but we now have to do further testing that used to be done in schutzhund before it began to emphasize the sport aspect more than the breedworthiness aspect. We still title our dogs for breeding purposes but we also do much more testing on our own to see if they are worth breeding overall. Unfortunately many people today only have schutzhund to base their selection of studs and females on and they don't realize how much change there has been to schutzhund over the years and how this has affected our breed from what it was, to where it is today and where it will be going in future years. Larry

Filo:

Perfectly said.

I call it a paper breeding, and I always avoid these kind of breeders. I like when good dog is breed to a good dog and the breeder can clearly explain to me why he choose the pair, what are they improving on by combining these bloodlines, if the breeder just tell me "com on look at the dogs in a pedegree" I usually walk away as it tells me how little though been put into the breeding. I hardly ever look at pedegrees I more intrested in the individual dogs characterstics. As well I don't choose dogs with no linebreeding in the first 5 generation, I hate to see when a breeder try to reproduce one of the famouse dogs. It scares me when I see a dog linebreed on 5 different dogs.

When comes to titles I need the titles only if I can't see the progeany, or the actuall dog working, it dose not have to be SCH, I don't have a problem buying pups from untitled parents as long as I was able to see tham work, or even better if I am able to see their progeany work.

by Mackenzie on 12 April 2009 - 11:04	Mackenzie Posts: 89 Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 09:46 am

Quote by  Mackenzie:

"Secondly,  if a dog has passed the test, even at the lowest marks, it has PASSED.  The reason for low marks can be a number of things e.g. novice trainer/handler, dog not really ready for test, poor training throughout, the dog may have reached it's level of incompetance at that moment.  These can all be rectified.

Thirdly, in regard to breeding then everyone would breed from that score.   The dog has passed."



Mackenzie,are you saying that Sch. sould be a pass/fail type assessment,rather than the scoring factor we have now??

Larry, its good to see you post. I concur with you one thousand percent and have been trying to articulate what you said but obviously not as eloquently as you did. I too participated in the sport when the point system was used. People didnot breed to dogs less than 10 points in courage other than in their own kennels. Some very high scoring dogs had 9 points in courage because they were well trained but lacked the tenacity to be awarded the 10.  When money, color, and gait, became overly important, the sch rules had to be watered down to accomodate the type of dogs that were being created with these emphasis. Today for me my criteria for breeding is whether or not my dogs will be able to become fine police/military dogs if given the opportunity.

Very interesting.

Tidbit: In the days when Lord Gleisdreick was the Golden Fleece, people spoke often of his 300 in his first trial ever.

Of course, changing standards/scoring leads to changes in breeding pools IF scores are correlated with breeding.  If the rules have changed and the dogs have changed due to those scoring rules changes, then it is pretty clear that people ARE breeding in part according to scores.

It seems to me that Trafalgar and Larry Filo are both deeply insightful AND agree on what matters.  Let's not parse too finely looking for disagreement.

MVF, also remember that Lord trialed under the DDR sch rules which were somewhat different than the West/International rules. DDR trials had differences in obedience and in protection aspects. They were under old school mentality,  still tested the fight drive of a dog.