Gräfental ??? - Page 3

I'd also have to agree with Blue Skye, Constance (Spartanville) is a wonderful person.  She is very honest and straight forward.  She produces wonderful pups and I am sure no one would be disapointed by a dog she bred.  She was a pleasure to deal with and has a ton of knowlege to share.

Shannan

You have to decide what you want. The  ultimate  "sport"  dog  who lives in confinement or a dog you can live with in your house.

My dogs have lived in the house with no  crate  after  6-7 monhs,  I  have a  crate in the car with the  door held  open.  On  rare occasions, when he is just too jacked up at the training field, I will lock him in the crate.

My pup, who has lots of Grafental bloodlines, has plenty of drive. True to his East German heritage, no random barking and a really good bite. He also has a huge booming basso bark true to his heritage from Sven Grafental.

Good luck in your search.

Michele and Pharaoh

Another thing Sven passes down is very bad hips, check the stats.

I think Puck and WIcky pups are awesome, including Puck/Jamba, and Puck/Haike. Connie is very trust worthy. I used Puck and have 3 of his pups that I decided to keep for awhile. Awesome pigment, structure, and temperament.

Dawgma, who is Sven that you mentioned with the bad hips?

Hello,

First of all...thank you to all that have said such nice things about me and the dogs.  Snowman, I sent you a PM.  FYI...there is no Sven in my pedigrees, anywhere :) 

Constance Krebs, RN

Spartanville Shepherds

www.spartanville.com

It is interesting that this old thread was recharged.

Graefental is definitely "old DDR" and they did produce a VA1 under the old regime (Bodo in 1980).

When they were imported into the US in the early 80s, some of the old time working lines folks DID say that some of the Graefental dogs were "face lickers."  Fidelco bought Bodo Graefental and found, to the surprise of some, that these dogs could do EVERYTHING.  From sport to guide work.  Bodo Graefental's offspring had some HUGE percentage of his puppies passing the guide dog tests.  Later, Bodo and some of his offspring, including my own Baer, went on to sire guide dogs. 

I'd say the old time DDR show lines could be said to be VERY smart and VERY much the generalist.

You should want that if you heavily line breed on these lines.

Grafental is one of the biggest kennels in Germany today. Their current stock has both the typical modern showlines and the old DDR lines. Infrequently, they will cross the 2 lines but usually they keep the 2 lines apart. Being such a big kennel, they will produce their share of good dogs and not so good dogs. So it all still comes down to selecting the individual.

I personally prefer the DDR lines because they are IN GENERAL, the most balanced of the different lines of GSDs today. Also, I just have a personal preference for their aesthetics: darkly pigmented, balanced structure, big boned.

They are the most balanced because they have remained closer in temperament and structure to the GSDs of the 50s, 60s and early 70s before the Martin brothers split the breed into the showlines and working lines. For example, back then, Bernd Lierberg was a show dog but also was in the BSP, and he is essential in the working abilities of today's working lines. The Wall came down in 1989 more than a decade after the show and working split in West Germany. That means the DDR dogs were never subjected to the split because they were not under the SV. They continued the old West German philosophy of breeding working dogs with good conformation, or in other words, show dogs that could really work. That is why it is true when someone says that DDR dogs are show dogs but that should be clarified to mean, "they are like show dogs of the 60s" (the Lierberg era).

In general, dogs with a high (say >50%) DDR, will not do as well in shutzhund sport competition as the West German working lines, simply because they were not bred for that. In a way, they are too balanced and sport emphasizes extremes (for example Michael Phelps is not your average Joe). But they are good enough for club level schutzhund and better than most handlers.

But be aware that a lot of top West German working line dogs have some DDR somewhere in their lines too. And just about all the top Czech dogs have DDR. A good GSD is not just about drives. Drives are worthless and even dangerous to the average handler, if not balanced by solid nerves and good temperament.

Snowman1 go to the SV ZW lookup www.schaeferhund.de/site/index.php

You will see that Sven Grafental has a very nice ZW of 85 - if you are interested in the actual record..... There can be bad combinations of two good dogs because **it happens. The ZW is an effort to gage the likelihood. The lower under 100, the better.

You can lookup just by the kennel name and see all the Grafentals. There are very few with ZW's over 100. Many of them are very low indeed.

Here is Pharaoh's father www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/444418.html

Here is Pharaoh's mother (Sven daughter) www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/507817.html

Here is the incredibly beautiful, hunkalicious Puck with his nice low ZW

On a personal note, I have only chatted with Connie of Spartanville on the internet and I did notice that she went out of her way to help others and shared her vast knowledge of canine and human health with others. I am in California and Connie is in Michigan. If she were within a couple of days driving distance, I would DEFINITELY have gone to meet her an Puck.

Michele and Pharaoh

Got it!  Thanks for the info.