Pros and Cons of this dog: Honest Opinions - Page 3

Poster " Bills King" : My dog King was truly my best friend. We did everything thing together and there was no doubt he was a one man dog. He was an awesome guard dog for my business but accepted those he got to know. Just looking at King would scare anybody off. His average weight was right around 100 lbs. He stood tall. Right around 26" inches maybe a tad taller. King passed away on December 12th, 2014. It broke my heart as well as my 5 year old niece and 9 year old nephew. I have spoken with quite a few breeders here in the states and after getting to know King through me and seeing a bunch of photo's all said I got lucky and got a great dog. They also said I would have a hard time finding another one as good in behavior and that looks as good as KING. He was very obedient and kept everybody in line. I hope to meet someone with a female West German back ground. Wonderful Gorgeous puppies are in store. I would like to pick a Black Sable male out of the litter. Please give me a call if you are interested and fit the bill. KING was also certified DM Clear :)-Bill
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"Why would someone in business go to this extent ( present a dog with an untraceable history ) just to make a few bucks. I think the  guy is genuine."

You answered it yourself, just to make a few bucks. I honestly think it is someone who very much loved their dog, and believes that he was the greatest dog ever and deserves to be bred. I don't think he has poor intentions, I just think his breeding decisions are swayed by emotions.

This is likely a case of an eccentric, totally inexperienced owner who truly believes this dog was something very special. And to them, he probably was. He was probably sold to them by another huckster spinning some crazy story ("custom bred," my ass) and I'll bet the dog wasn't cheap. All the dog's life, the owner believed he was some elite creature, when in fact he was a beloved pet who may or may not have been a wonderful dog. I totally agree with hntrjmpr. The owner is probably legit, ie, they believe this stuff themselves, but the dog's pedigree, though perfectly acceptable, is nothing earth-shattering. He seems to have been a pretty dog, but not extraordinary. A nice dog, but I certainly see no reason to use semen from him. There are plenty of living, proven dogs. 

Mithuna, how did you find this dog? What's the attraction to him and what are you looking to breed to him? 

B King Grobartigschafer Please use this updated entry for all future updates, thank you.

Thank you to Jyl for the research.

Good heavens, I can't believe how cloak-and-dagger this thread has become...

Look, the dog belonged to a guy named Bill, hence the 'B' prefix of the dog--it's shorthand for "Bill's", since you only get to use 36 'characters' for the dog's registered name under the AKC's naming protocol, and that 36 includes any spaces between words, punctuation, hyphens, numbers, etc; a longer name using 37 to 50 characters will cost you an additional $10 fee. The dog's call name was King thus "B[ill's] King", and the Grobartigschafer, as SS already figured out, is a rough translation of 'big, good Shepherd', so the dog's full name in English is Bill's King the big, good Shepherd. No more silly a name than Timmy of the Bad Neighborhood, when you think of it. Registered names often are silly; that's what call names are for.  The dog has a DNA profile on record with the AKC, which leads me to think that perhaps he WAS an import, just not directly from Germany, because who does DNA on a dog that they don't use for breeding? I'm guessing the DNA was done in order to obtain AKC registration for a foreign-born and registered dog.

There's no mystery here that I can see...the guy had a dog that was the light of his eyes, and he adored him; somewhere along the line, he decided to collect semen from the dog before he was too old to produce viable sperm, with an eye toward hoping he could have a son and/or daughter of his beloved King. He lost his dog in December 2014, and my guess is that if someone were to breed their bitch to King via AI, this guy would probably want to purchase a puppy if he liked that female. The owner knows enough about European GSD lines to recognize that his dog was of WG working lines, and is likely not interested in seeing puppies out of his King from an American line or a Euro showline female, so now he's looking to reach people who have bitches with similar lines to his dog, since that would be his best shot toward getting a Little King or Queen, by posting on this busy site where lots of people in the US who own working line females drop by to read the ads and the forums. 

The dog looks to have been no worse a stud dog candidate than many others that are advertised on this site with equal credentials to their name, and if he were still living I have no doubt that there are folks who would consider using him if they could see and interact with the dog in the flesh...This dog may well have been an amazing dog--the only ones who know that for sure would be people who had the opportunity to know the dog. Bill's King had good longevity, given he was five months shy of his 13th birthday when he passed away.  I don't think King's owner means any harm or is trying to scam anyone...I think he just wants a little piece of a dog he felt hung the moon back in his life again, and he believes having someone breed their female via AI to King will achieve that goal. Maybe it will, maybe it won't--anyone who has loved a dog and says they haven't wished they could have done the same is lying; we'd all love to have another dog just like that 'heart dog' we each lost, if we're being honest with ourselves.  So I'm just not comfortable with the somewhat mocking undertone this thread has taken on with regard to the owner of B King Grobartigschafer. I don't think the guy deserves that just because he placed an ad for stud service.

I don't know what the story is about the OFA thing--perhaps he was told that the dog had already had his hips certified when he got him, only it's an A-stamp and not OFA; or perhaps the dog was only prelim'd as a yearling--that would have been twelve years ago, and I don't know if OFA was publishing prelims on the website back then. If someone truly wants to know, the guy has published his contact info in his ad--ask him about it.

Jenni, as for your question about where Mithuna found this dog--that's easy. The guy has been running a classified in the Stud Service section for a couple of months now. Regarding the 'why' of Mithuna's interest in the dog, well.....  King was an attractive dog, there's no denying that, enough so that the ad featuring him caught my eye as it did the crawl at the top of the page, so perhaps that's all there is to Mithuna's inquiry as well--just plain curiosity. At least that's what my interest in the dog has been....

I don't look at the stud classifieds and have never seen a banner ad for the dog. I think knowing what s/he wants to do with the semen is pertinent. I'm sure some uses are better than others. Maybe Mithuna has  a dog with a really complementary pedigree. That would make the endeavor a bit "wiser" than buying semen off some random dog when there are others who are alive and healthy, etc. 

The mocking is about the name, the amateurish red flags to do with his ped. registration, etc. All things the breeder would control, not the buyer. Hence, my comment about the dog likely being sold as an expensive puppy by someone who spun a tale to entice a well-meaning but inexperienced buyer. Let's make up a German-sounding name, too. Sorry, that bugs me. "Custom bred?" Seriously? Sounds predatory. Like someone deliberately trying to make a buck off someone's lack of experience. 

I don't see the big question about the hips. Maybe the dog was x-rayed before he did and not certified. I really don't care to debate about any of it. Don't know Mithuna, don't know the dog. 

nice looking dog, sounds like a perfect match up for the owner and from the brief post would appear the dog was much loved.

can't ask for more than that.

Good post, Hexe (as usual!) I ddin't realized the dog was DNA'd. And you're right, an intact dog DOES have to have DNA done before it can get AKC registration. When I purchased Star, that was one of the things that delayed her registration papers. Her dad was a recent import, and when his owner subnitted the DNA to AKC, one sample was blank, and AKC or the postal service managed to loose a second one!   Then it turned out the stud's previous owner hadn't completed the ownership transfer section of the pedigree properly...

Took me NINE MONTHS to get her friggin' papers!

BTW, I JUST saw an ad on the banner for this dog, as I was reading the new posts. It doesn't mention him by name but does mention Gildo and Dasty.