Sharp dog - Page 3

Real Dog

That is more along the lines of what I have been told.  I was told that a sharp dog needs to be socialized much more.  It wont change them but it will help.

Sharpness in the correct sense is not a fault!!!!!!!!!!!
Sharpness as is defined by the original standards is a QUALITY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Read Max von Stephanitz book and his coments as the father of our breed!!!!!!!!!!  Read page 649.
Read the old evaluation charts for gsd's by the Czechs and Germans. Stop reading American authors that have no idea what they are talking about!!!!!!!
If I sound anoyed it is because I am. Correct sharpness or Sharpness in it's truest pure form is not bad nerves, it is not fear based, it is not a panick reaction to any stimuli as Dr. Robins states. Dr. Robins needs to do some reading up on this subject by the people who actually value this trait. This is or at least was a very valued trait in a working gsd years ago. Because of poor breeding and many fearfull nervy dogs the water has been muddied and sharpness has been confused with fearbiters and dogs that are out of control. 

This is not what the original breeder had in mind. Sharpness is a quality that makes this dog quicker to respond, quicker to meet a challenge. He is a dog that puts up with little crap. Agar was more in line in his first post in regards to proper understanding of sharpness. 

I wish I could refer you to some good solid articles on sharpness but I don't have the time right now to look them up. This is sad that so many misunderstand this wonderful trait that enables these dogs to perform a specific type of work, man work, PP, border patrol etc. My concern is that this trait is being bred out of our dogs because it is not P.C. and is not becoming of our civilized society, or the Peta mentality.  I want a degree of sharpness in my dogs. My only concern is that they are under my control and they are taught from early on threw socializing what is and is not appropriate. A degree of sharpness is the dog that is aloof, a word that seems to be lost. He is not a dog that like the Golden Retriever is everybodys buddy. The dog with true and proper sharpness is alert and ready to do what is necessary and no more to protect and or get his message across to the unwelcomed person. Hope this helps

Olskoolgsds~

Thank you!!

Olskool,

As is the case most of the time, I agree 100%.

Olskool-Great post.   If youre not too busy, Im sure some would love to see more info, anything you have. Im for one do. Great topic.

thanks

I took the time to type it the excert from the german shepherd dog in work and picture from Max.  From page 649.

Now it makes sense to me.  Sharp is not nervy.....but if your not careful you can end up with the same problems.  Atthough it appears that sharp was desired......you had to be very careful.  I guess that is why I was warned from the beginning to watch who works my dog and how they do it.

I find it interesting that he states that the traininers is finishing the work of the breeder....that says alot in itself

Here ya go....

The protection dog must be sharp, but this sharpness must be disciplined by training, turned in the right direction, and conditioned by the most perfect obedience. Sharpness has absolutely nothing at all to do with a proneness to bite; a biting dog is a proof of wrong training and keeping. Teasing, senseless irritation, being chased by stupid or evil minded persons, the chain and the kennel, all tend to produce him. Indeed the biting dog very often bites out of sheer anxiety and irritation, for he believes, poor neurasthenic that he is, that is the only way to save himself from the danger that is the fiction of his own disordered imagination. Such a dog is useless both As a protection dog, and in the house, and the amateur must not bother himself with him at all. It is very difficult to mend his manners, and if he is a “panic biter”, an improvement is scarcely possible. The dog too, who has been made too sharp, is a continual danger in the house and on the street, even for the relations and servants of the owner because he, when put on to any work, can find in every harmless treatment and casual movement, an assault on his master, and the sequel, while, doubtless perfectly right in his point of view, is not always necessarily in perfect harmony with our own.

The dog who is sharp as he ought to be, on the contrary, is harmless and good tempered even to strangers, although he is always reserved, no “lick spittle”, and no “hail fellow well met” with the “rag tag bobtail”. he warns and threatens first of all, he does not fight at once, and , above all, never bites immediately and senselessly when he can accomplish his purpose without a fight. To train a dog too frequently on a man in the safety suit easily leads to this, and thus to sharp biting, because he has learnt this when practicing with the safety suit.

It is always good for the owner to have a dog thoroughly under control so that he may keep him from misunderstandings and their consequences, and to accustom him to the word of command which will incite him to increased watchfulness in time of danger, either by “look out” or some other short word which has its own distinctive note and is different from the other words of command. The motto “for work on man, of any and every description is firstly, obedience, secondly, obedience, and thirdly, lastly, and always OBEDIENCE”.

Training must give us dogs of the right sharpness, produced by intelligent keeping, careful training, purposeful schooling, which complete the work of the breeder, but the foundations must be already there. Training, again, depends on the service to which the dog is put, and on the perfection of the endowments of the parent animals through work/ both go hand in hand to the benefit of the race.

From the german shepherd dog in word and picture

In regards to...

"4pack

just curious....have you had pups and had to return them because they were not cut out for the work?

That is what it sounds like from your posts.   Wouldnt it have been cheaper in the long run to buy a mature dog....one that you know what you are getting?

I read about people doing this all the time...just doesnt make sense to me."

No luckily I have not needed to return a GSD pup. I have however backed out of 2 deposits I placed. Rather lose the deposit, than stuck with a pup I would not be happy with. I require enough info from the breeder, before taking a pup to be pretty sure of what I am getting. Yes I can be demanding, yes a pain in the ass but so far it has worked out for me, the breeder and the dogs. The first pup was bred in Belgium and the man selling the dog bought the bitch from the people who did the whelping. They spoke no english and he was too busy to get the info I asked for, so I declined on that pup after sending my deposit.

Second pup wasn't what I was looking for, after seeing video and temperamnet testing. Breeder was nice enough to send my deposit back because she found another buyer. It was a fantastic reeding, I'm sure they had no problem placing pups.

Buying and adult "might" be cheaper in the long run but I trust my own puppy rearing and chances are better to get a pup of the quality I seek, than purchasing an adult. No one in their right mind would sell the dog I have now, not for what I could afford anyway.  His breeder is always teasing me to send him back, he'd take himin a heartbeat!

I enjoying raising pups and knowing every scenario they have been through. No dog aggression, no issues and if there are, I know if they are made by my mistakes rather than his genetics. Ther are too many unknowns with an adult dog, who did his training and how and what techniques they used? By purchasing a pup I know all of this and more. I can watch his progress daily, see improvements and watch for weeknesses.

I'm not a heartless owner, I take as many steps possible to assure myself I get a pup I will keep forever. I have a daughter and neither one of us wants to part with a dog we have bonded to but on the other end, I have only so many kennels. I live in town and am only allowed 4 dogs. No room to house the ones that don't work out. I just recently lost my rescue male and my daughter still has her GSD rescue. My boyfriend has a promissing young female as well. That leaves me with one spot open. Our current younge dogs are awesome and neither is going anywhere, I can't rehome a dog I rescued 5 years ago and break my kids heart. No more rescues now that I am getting serious about this dog business.

Lucky for me I found a breeder who understands all of this and breeds the kind of dogs we like. There is no BSing, he can tell me axactly what to expect with each breeding and I trust him to help me make the right puppy selection in a litter. He also will spend endless hours on the phone and make short clips of pups for me to watch. Huge one for me...he will take a puppy back if I am not happy. He prefers that, so he can place the pup with another home and keep track of his dogs.

Sure it took allot of work and time for me to email and phone call numerous breeders but now I can relax, I know I have one I can trust.

I agree with most of you that posted above.  Sharpness does not equal bad nerves.  I do agree with GARD, like always, that bad training with a sharp dog can go really wrong.  However, I may have a different view of how it may go bad.  If you do not balance a dog that already has a low threshold for stimuli, then you are going to have a major liability.  If you push this dog over the edge, there will be no threshold.  Everything will be a challenge or a threat.  Once you take this dog into that world, it is very hard to get him back down to earth.  I just placed a dog that was very sharp.  His nerves were as solid as they come.  Not scared of a thing.  A very dominant dog.  A dog that if like Gard said, was trained in the wrong fashion, would lower his threshold of what he saw as a challenge to absolutely nothing.  Does that make the dog a "nerve bag"?

There is another thread on sport vs. real world training.  I think for both and anything you do you have to tailor your training to every specific dog.  You have to look at what each dog brings to the table.  This may be one reason why you see higher end sport people buy and sell dogs regularly.  Some people know what they want and will only work with what characteristics are to their liking.  I, like alot of you said, like a balanced dog.  With a dog that is extremely sharp, with very high agresssion and is on the defensive side of the spectrum, you pretty much have to work the dog solely in prey.  Putting pressure/defense on some of these dogs will put them over the edge. 

Don, excellent observations and sharing  the big picture.

Ugly, Just do a google search for Sharpness in Working dogs. One of my favorite sites that do an excellent job of breaking down drives and definitions is Dobermann Kennel Ascomannis. They have the old DDR working dog evaluations that rate Sharpness along with other Qualities. I don't know if this system is still used but it was IMO a very good system.

GARD, I think you would enjoy looking at this sites article on drives, definitions, and breaking it down more.

There are a number of good web sites that will have good articles, the one above is very interresting reading for those interrested.

Ravenwalker, thanks for getting Max on here, maybe one day I will learn how to do all this high tech stuff, like pictures and articles. I would love to get some snaps on here one day.

This discussion of just what constitutes a "sharp" dog is fascinating.  Here is a Gary Patterson quote on the subject:

"Let's examine two different situations in which a dog might find itself where aggression is the result. In the first, a dog is trained to patrol a farm and stop any intruder from coming onto the property. It freely patrols the farm until it finds a bear entering the farm to invade the farmer's bee hives. The dog will first display through barking and making its body apparently larger (raised hackles, stiff front legs, ears extended forward, deep barking and quick, but aggressive, advancement against the bear.) If the displays don't work against the bear so it continues to advance, the dog must then make a decision to shift to another form of defense behavior, either flight or aggression. The important point is that this is a voluntary act by the dog; it either runs or fights. Either behavior is a legitimate defense, so the dog wins no matter which way it reacts.

Using the same example, we will now chain the dog to a post next to the bee hives so it cannot escape. Here, when the bear advances, the dog has no alternative but to fight for its life. Thus, instead of willingly engaging in a fight, it takes on an entirely different body posture as the bear approaches. Its ears may go back, barking will be high pitched and shrill, its tail may tuck under the belly and its lips will pull back to show its teeth. In other words, the dog is experiencing stress at the highest level, a total fear reaction. In the first example, the dog is showing true defense, a response where the dog voluntarily attacks and is rewarded. In the second example, self defense, the animal has no choice but to try to save itself and will inflict injury in any way to avoid the threat. Self defense always results in fear and stress with the dog never being the winner. It is this type of dog that, if it should show this kind of behavior in training, we often describe as sharp or sharp/shy. While it is difficult to say with certainty, sharpness comes most commonly from the basic temperament of the dog, but I have seen cases where it seemed that poor training or imprinting was the cause. In either case, it should be understood that the overly sharp dog is never a qualified candidate for any protection work as it exaggerates any experience to the point where anything can become a threat. It may bite a protection sleeve harder than any novice dog should only to pop off or it may as easily bite the helper's face, club members or family friends.

It must be understood from the outset that all defense is stressful, in the sense that defense only arises from a perceived threat, real or otherwise. If we train a dog in the same way each training session, the defense drive will slowly wane and then die, as the dog sees only a patterned, predictable environment to which it must respond with no real threat to its existence. When trainers and breeders talk about nerve in a dog, it is really the dog's ability to cope with and conquer this stress that distinguishes the outstanding temperament from the rest. Therefore, good protection training must involve new experiences for the dog if it is to maintain a strong defense drive."

Micky