The decline of the German Shepherd character - Page 45

Thank you Hired Dog, if you ever apply for a teaching career, I will be very happy to vouch for you

"Prey dog looks good and do good in such  scenarios where the perpetrator is acting like a "prey" meaning trying to get away which is what confuses the issue since that is what most peps do."

I think that sums up the Sieger video of fails that was posted earlier! With the tinest bit of challenge they failed misarably.

HD seems like alot of anthropomorphisms in those descriptions, seems a bit complicated when trying to apply it to a drive. If only in the elite posses then is it really a drive as framed? Sounds more like civil to me in the sense, its there... or its not. Theres no grade of civil for me, what you describe as fight drive seems not to have a gradient either.

Gigante, I used human related examples to make it easier for Ibrahim to understand since English is not his primary language. You are right, it is complicated, as most things are when there are so many "drives" in the dog world, no one is really sure what they all mean and everything somehow ends up as a "drive". 

If everyone possesed it, there would be no elite and this and every other breed would not be discussed in the current light, yes? Every sailor would be able to graduate BUDS and every soldier would be able to graduate Ranger school, but, that is not the case, hence, few have it and most dont.

Civil to you and civil to my sister who is not a dog person mean two totally different things, but, I have seen many defensive dogs become civil, not out of confidence either. Its either there or its not is NOT the way to look at it, you need to know WHY its there in order for it to matter. A dog that enjoys fighting, based on the parameters I outlined in my last post is very civil indeed, but, for very different reasons than the overly defensive dog. A dog who loves to fight will get in the fight and most important of all, STAY in the fight when given an opportunity and a chance to leave whereas the defensive civil dog is hoping and praying for that exit because its lacking in that nerve base.

Lastly, indeed there is a grade and its based on the couple of things I mentioned on this post.

it is all about interpretation of definitions and I definately interpretate defenitions differently   Hired dog

i would not not even know or want to know how to start a dog that wasn't high in prey altho i have seen guys try it, not a pretty sight and is basically nothing more than mentally damaging the dog into a reaction.

you guys can have all that garbage all to yourselves.

i want the dog that runs to the fight because it's a fight, not the dog that defends itself as a last resort because it has been trained that there is no chance of escape and it is scared of being killed and eaten.

VK, what makes a dog "run to the fight because its a fight"?

VK problem with you people is that you talk about black and white and forget about all the colours inbetween

Here is were I will disagree with some other working folks on here.  

The idea that a prey freak cannot make a good police or protection dog.  I have seen many examples of dogs in prey that you cannot put into defence.  They have rock solid nerve and intense prey drive.  They view the human as prey "non classical prey aggression" as I have seen it referred to and will bite and fight like maniacs. They simply do not go into defence no matter what. 

Ask Mike at Logan Haus Kennels what type of dogs he is selling to special forces and border patrol.  It is these types. 

Examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cftn_C54ULc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKIgCvt-O2E&feature=youtu.be

Enough pressure?..

HD, unless you are a fighter yourself no amount of words could ever describe it.

Duke, i hold you in the highest esteem but dude, watch yr own clips,  LLLLLLLLLLLLOTS of prey drive in your dogs, and that a good thing.

you guys just think prey is play, true for a lot of border collies but not in a well bred GSD/mal, quiet the oppossite in fact.

Breed standard structure/anatomy is based on physics and locomotion, utilized expertise in animal and dog, benefitted from other dog breeds function and relative standard. Our breed's structure is perfect not only for a trot but also for a safe jump. Please read what Fred Lanting explains about importance of a correct front angulation for a safe landing after a jump.

Whether herding livestock, doing police work, performing obedience exercises, or pulling loads, the working dog needs a well-angled shoulder/upper arm assembly. Let’s consider this synonymous with good layback of both bones, for convenience’s sake. A “straight” (more vertical) foreassembly is somewhat like a car without springs. Imagine a dog with poor front angulation hitting the ground with its forelimbs after climbing over a wall in pursuit of an errant lamb or thief. The hard shock will have a detrimental effect before long.

A dog with better angles (yet strong ligaments in pasterns, elbows, and shoulders) can spread that shock over an imperceptibly longer period of time, during which the muscles slow the impact while the bones go through their “folding up” action relative to each other, then release that stored energy by straightening out again (bouncing back). Trotting creates very nearly the same sort of shock that jumping does, only far less violent.

A successful parachutist survives because he takes only a tiny fraction of a second longer to hit the ground than someone whose chute didn’t open. A good boxer “rolls with the punches”, while the guy who holds his head still when the other guy’s fist approaches finds himself waking up some time later. The baseball player relies on padding and moving his hand back to slow the speed of the ball as it makes contact with his glove. The differences in time intervals in each illustration are truly minute, but they can mean the difference between ease and pain, or life and death. Likewise the differences in layback from dog to dog may be small, but a tiny difference can mean smoother action, greater ability to hit the ground effortlessly whether jumping or trotting, and a longer useful working life. The galloping breeds minimize that shock by increasing the horizontal-to-vertical motion ratio. My show champion, lure-coursing Whippet was undefeated after he learned to run “flat” instead of “up and down”. The trotter breeds have a little more need for more acute angles in the foreassembly.