Showlines, Working Lines - The ability to work - Page 3

Shelley said: Would that more people did that... IMExp they come out a couple of times, find out how much time and work it is, and disappear forever.

Exactly, Shelley!  MOST people just like the IDEA of working their dogs.

Mystere, you are also right... money plays a huge part in S/L breeding.  I hope / believe there are enough good breeders out there to see beyond the £$.  Certainly more are working their dogs these days, albeit because they have to.

 

In these difficult times with high unemployment we will probably see more pups born for the extra income that a family may need.  Once again the dogs will become a means to the end.

I agree with Shelley and it confirms what I said in an earlier post regarding top breeders and shutzhund work.  These people realise that they cannot train a dog other than to run around in a circle.

I really hope that the breed can come together, instead of the fragmented situation that we now have, to regain a universal German Shepherd.  It is my opinion that most dogs can be trained and for the working people a showline animal  may be just the stimulant and challenge of their skills to justify their reputations.   The other side of the coin is that if showline breeders introduce a working line it well improve their novice skills as a trainer and give them more fulfilment for their interests.

regards

Mackenzie

Reminds me of an old adage from my riding days: wet saddle blankets make good horses!

There's a similar situation in the riding word, where people think you have to have the highest priced horse, and the best trainer in order to succeed, but aren't willing to put the sweat into it to reach the top.

It always tickles me to seen some of these high-priced horses get beat by a really dedicated junior on a $1,000 school horse no one thinks is worth a second look...

I really like the point that Nia made about a HOT designation for SL dogs. Sorry, but I've overhead a German judge in a candid setting explaining very bluntly how "Paper Titles" are awarded to the dogs shipped off to Germany for their titles. He said, "This is the way it works in Germany. 600 Euros to the club, 1200 Euros to the Judge, and you get your title in the book." I really do wish that "prestigious" SL breeders would have to work, train, and title their own dogs and see the good, the bad, and the ugly. Surely this would influence their decision on what dogs are "breedworthy"... or so I would hope!

Oh, yes, you can bet it would affect their opinion of breedworthiness. Nobody could possibly be kennel-blind enough for it to have no effect. :-)

It would appear that most of the blame for not producing a universal German Shepherd, one that can work and be as close to the breed standard as possible, is dumped firmly at the feet of the Showline breeders.  However, let us consider the part played by trainers.  Have the top working trainers been so wowed by working ability that they have abandoned the breed standard?  Now that the showlines and working lines are, anatomically, so far apart should the trainers and working line breeders not take their share of the blame?

Mackenzie

I am going to admit there are faults that seem to be common to workinglines, and agree that a proper structure is very important and ignoring it heads the dog off in the wrong direction.

BUT the premise in this thread is that German Showline dogs are the way the GSD is supposed to be constructed and working lines are not.

I am not convinced the modern day showline truly has a superior structure.  Go back a few decades and maybe so when the backs were not as short and roached and the rear legs not quite as angulated, and they were not all universal black and red. 

Hello Nancy

If you look at the animals from the Sieger Show you will find very few dogs that you can call roach backed, however, some of the dogs are overangulated.  The dogs we see today are closer to the correct height to length proportions than we have seen in the not too distant past.  As I see it many breeders did not pay enough attention to detail in their matings.  I can remember in the UK a period where the dogs were extremely short with short steep upper arms, neither are correct.  How UK breeders managed this, using the same bloodlines as the Germans, is a mystery to me.   The more knowledgeable in the breed pointed out that height to length ratio was not correct but I have heard some of the breeders say "the Germans have got it all wrong".

The major problem that breeders have is that once these faults are stamped in it takes many years sometimes to get them out  and, in doing so, often other major problems arise as a sacrifice to correction of one particular area.   Perhaps some of this is down to false pedigrees in the past.  Thankfully, things are improving.

I agree that some of the dogs from the working lines are getting closer to the breed standard but these are in a minority.   When we see the working lines consistently producing dogs closer to the breed standard then we can say for sure that progress is being made.   If that end is possible then we may see showline breeders more willing to return to the working lines.

Kind regards

Mackenzie