Saying Hail Mary's before typing this..... - Page 3

Thanks for the responses everyone. I have a lot to take away and "chew" on.

I'll see your "nasty" & raise you one "snippy".   I wasn't being nasty - I am not capable of subtleties!!!!!!!!

Not even even long coats are safe from interpretation.  You can show a fluffy plush coat to ten knowledgable people and I would bet that five will say that it is a "coat" the other five will say that it has a nice show coat. Go figure LOL

opinions, opinions.... with most breeds there is always one particular dog the standard was modeled after. the "perfect" example of the breed. what did he look like?  if for some reason that dogs name was never divulged then i feel (again  an opinion) that the best way would be to look at pics of those who had the winning conformation closest to the time of the standards indoctrination. obviously it would be the person who wrote the standard judging these dogs so they would definately have to live up to the original meaning of said standard. in the GSD i have never seen pics from that time period with the so called bananna backs nor the extreme angles we see today in many of the show dogs.

If you take the definition of a longcoat as having the long tufting on the ears and elbows, you will not go far wrong.  If the ears are smooth at the base all the way round, it is a correct coat,  no matter what the actual length of the coat (one to two inches according to the Standard) elsewhere on the dog. 

Margaret N-J

Well said, ramgsd!! I totally agree!

Sueincc :  "It's not a damn dress cut out from a pattern!!!!"  I'm still laughing - well said!  Hit the nail on the head!

Goldenelk - thanks for the link, I've seen that one before but forgot to bookmark it.

Ramgsd - exactly my thoughts - can someone post a picture of the original dog the standard was set by?

So who actually wrote the standard?  And when?  Was it Max?  Then his "perfect" GSD would be Horand or similar early GSD, and then in which case nobody is producing the "correct" GSD anymore or else they would look more like the originals, almost like the Malinois (gasp!).

So wrote the standard?

And to add to that question I have one more. By the end of his life did Max consider the breed completed, pointed in the direction of near final outcome or as a breed in it's infancy? I don't know if he ever recorded this information. It would seem that he was very meticulous in recording these things. I'm just curious.

Last few posts, very good and I wonder the same things myself. Also who did Max leave his ideas with, physically speaking I mean? I know he left them for all GSD lovers but did he have a son, wife, partner to carry on his ideas? Maybe someone from Germany knows more?