East vs West - Page 4

I agree with what Pack says, I am privileged to be able to watch the best Dogs in Belgium working and i never miss anything, plus i always ask questions if i want to know something and i ask the handlers of those top Dogs
A lot of people buy an older Dog which has been titled so the work is done for them, That is not to say that they cannot make that dog better or ruin it that depends on the handler, but for me the beauty of keeping these Dogs is to train it from a 8 week old Pup, that to me is a challenge and very interesting, and the best thing about a Pup is you may have a great dog in the making or you may have an ordinary one but it is great finding out,
My Izzy has the breeding but it will not make her a Champ because she has that but it sure does help a lot, time will tell if i live long enough
Duke mentioned ARCO yes, he is a really serious Dog and a fine competitor a huge drive but very stable and focused sure to give a good account of himself in the forth coming WUSV
Also i agree with Get a Real Dog and Held
The Belgian Dogs are not often mentioned in favour of the Dogs bred in Germany, But there are many great dogs here and excellent Breeders meaning Stud Dogs who's progeny is working well and getting a lot of titles in many countries
Three such Dogs are Nick lines, Tom Van't Leefdahlhof and Eros three great breeding dogs and there progeny doing very well, even some  generations down, another up and coming producer is Zasko vom Prielburg his progeny going great in several countries, of course only Eros and Zasko are still alive
Steve

Yes, there are good dogs in many countries and places, but most belgians dogs seems to have german dogs close upp and are also breed for IPO/SCH foremost, so I don´t think they are so different than the german ones. I suppose there could be more differences in dogs breed more for different purposes and goals for a longer period of time, like the DDR dogs in fomer times had a different purpose than many west dogs.

 Please don;t quote on any particular dog anything. I just made a broad statement. I'm not selling any particular dog or kennel neither am I being paid to do any marketing nor am I associated with nay food seller or business here. I have the right to have and build my own understanding /opinions and biases which may appear to be limited to a lot of people. But as someone else said previously on this board. There are people who have spent years supposedly breeding and training dogs but they still cannot read a dog even after years of so called experience. I never said I'm an expert just here to learn., What I know I know. I do not need to prove to any specific person here. Neither do I track people on this baord as I said before. I hardly know anyone in person on this board. Very few if at all.

cheers 

about belgian dogs

belgium has a long history of breeding and training workingdogs , and from the early 1900s they have workingtrails , but when you read the reports of trails and breedingrecords you will find that there were many groenedael and some malinois  in sports/police at first , later on switching over to mainly malinois , and in the history of ringsport and in all three belgium studbooks , you will hardly find any german shepherd in the working area
so basically one could say there are no old/original belgium lines in GSD , not to say they dont have very good breeders , and even better trainers in belgium

I think the only lines that could be a bit different than the more common german IPO/SCH-dogs is probably the some of the swedish workinglines, due to the fact they also have less influence from the german dogs due to isolation for a long time by importrestrictions due to rabies, and also haven´t been breed for SCH /IPO, except from the mid 90s when SCH started to come here. Probably have more in common with the DDR-types of former east.

Vikram yes you are right you do not need to prove absolutely anything.

I get very enoyed when people judge dogs that they have no clue about. you stated that yourself. I got to see some very nice dogs that could not produce anything good. I got to meet couple of dogs that looked OK on the field and produced some very nice dogs.

West, East, Holland, Belgium, Czech, Slovak, Whatever dog. Information is very important. My best dog I ever had was a cross of GSD and some streetproduct. I worked him in ZVV and that dog was very nice. Everybody has opinion, I say GO and ask people WHO are not novice, people who can show you the dog that you are interested and If you do not want to take the time.. well you get what you get and hopefully it'll do good.

I have seen you put down Czech and DDR dogs, Unless it is west dog it is worthless. I disagree... I think those are nice dogs.. but I could see a lot of "nerviness" in Max as well... the same one that my czech male has.. it is the training.. when you have a hard, real dog.. the drive svitches a lot till the dog matures and finds the confidence to overcome a lot of things... it is not nerviness it is maturing and thought process of the dog. also it is the "training" because the real dogs are harder to train.. since they are chancetakers, thinkers and you have to be one step ahead.... and it sucks because a lot of people can not do it...

I did not want to offend you and I hope that I did not. I like a good working dog that can do the job. I like certain dogs in my papers since I am familiar with them. It is easier to find a Czech dog for me than DDR these days. I like some West lines also.. I like them all if they do the job!!!
Pack

pack said it all
AMEN

no you did not offend me at all its all in the spirit of new learnings

thanks & cheers
 

"actually if you look at some of the texts historically and also talk to many trainers. East German lines do not even come under the category of "Working Dogs" I don;t know from where you are making this absurd statement that East Lines are defence oriented and Wets are prey oriented. This is the most absurd statement I have heard so far!!! Get your facts straight."

Actual I do have my facts straight, and I hope that you learnt something from the above disscussion. I had those dogs arround me since the day I can remember. But I agree with you and others that this era is gone, and there are not many dogs left that ressemble the ones we had back then. But why do you state (or agree with those trainers) that they would not deserve the term Working Dog??? If you call out for an absurd statement, that one of yours would be exactly head on.

If you have problems with a dog, but temperamentwise the dog is sound, then you need to rethink your training methods.

Thank you all for your contributions, it has been most helpful, especially those of you that included links with pics and historicall info.  I agree, a good dog is a good dog regardless.  My goal is to identify which lines have the traits I prefer which include: both prey and defense drives  with a degree of hardness, yet clearheaded with maturity and of course soundness.  

I have an older Alk / Lord male that was heavy defense and took some work to balance with the prey.  Natural grips, hard and fast but not a high point dog due to control, but very good in the house.   I have had a 4/4 Mink dog that was over the top prey, no defense, stubborn could be hectic and had problems outing, but did beautiful obedience, (we lost him to DM).  I have a new female NIck/Mink lines that has great grips beautiful obedience but gets stuck in prey doing bitework.   My husband has a Ahron von Granit Rose granddaughter that is showing tons of potential at 4 months.

I don't know if these are typical traits within these lines.  I know I like some of the Lord dogs, and I think a little Mink goes a long way but too much is not so good!  I know Nick is highly regarded but not sure about the specific traits he is noted for producing.