What does your male GSD weigh? - Page 5

Drake is 8 1/2 months, 27", 93 lbs, very large boned.  I can feel all of his ribs, can see the last two.

Weight for WHAT PURPOSE?  The right weight for an AD is probably 15 pounds lighter than the right weight for everyday life.

Further, build -- bone, width, height, legginess -- all matter a great deal.   In the old days, there was more talk of how much daylight was under the dog.  The AKC show dogs were 45-50% of their withers height at the bottom of their chests, but the german dogs had more daylight.  Their chests came down to only 50-55% of their withers height. That's a lot less chest and weight, if everything else (width, bone) are equal.

Keep in mind, too, that height is linear but weight (mass) is cubic.  That means that height matters a lot, more than our intuition suggests.  Each of these dogs are of identical proportion and condition:

23" (58.5 cm) male weighing 70 pounds

24" (61 cm) male weighing 79.5

25" (63.5 cm) male weighing 89.9

26" (66 cm) male weighing 101.1

I think this may surprise some people.  Of course, it is often the case that taller dogs are also leggier, so they are not in this proportion and therefore not so heavy.  But a good rule of thumb is that a 23" male weighing 70 is in the same condition as a 26" male weighing 100.

In any case, it's not weight but body fat % that really matters.  If your dog feels like an anvil, great.  If he is soft and flabby, not great.  Whatever the weight.

Take this quick quiz.  What would each of the following weigh if he was the height of an average gsd (say, 64.5 cm)?

a) male american cocker spaniel, 14 1/2" and 28 lbs

b) male great dane, 32" and 130 lbs

Answer to that quiz:

That male cocker spaniel blown up to the height of an average male gsd would weigh.....150 lbs.

That male great dane shrunk down to the height of an average male gsd would weigh... 65 lbs.

That cocker would have that dane for lunch.   The cocker is the most massive of the three breeds.

MVF these days the imports don't have much leg under them either. Not a good thing IMO.

Ok, and now for the confessional:

A female DDR 4yo spayed bitch, very big boned, 61cm and 77 lbs.  Hard as a rock.  She is a (big) skeleton at 69 (her pre-spay adult weight) and competitively fit at 72-74.

A male WG working lines, 4 month old pup, very big boned.  He's too shy to say his weight,  because he is just a tad chubby. He is well over 50.  His street weight will be over 100 as an adult, with a competitive SchH weight well below that in the high 80s or low 90s.

Blitzen: I quite agree.  It has probably hurt the athleticism of the breed.  It has also perversely made the very sporty dogs "look" too leggy, when the opposite has happened.

There was old biomechanical research that showed that square dogs were most efficient movers.  The American dogs at that time were flirting with 10:8 (height to body length) and the german dogs were 10:9 (so much better).  I measure pics of german dogs now and then and am shocked to see many are 10:8.2 or 10:8.3. 

Blitzen: if I continued that table above to 28" dogs, the weight would have been 126.  Just the weight of your former, fit male.

Molly: I had a DDR sieger Bodo v Grafental son (out of a 65 cm, 80 lb bitch) who was 66-67 cm and 100 pounds as hard as a rock.  His street weight was a real 110, and actually hit 117 after retirement and before I regained control.  He was not really fat until he went over 110.  The extreme dogs, like yours, can tip the scales at 100, although I agree that MOST dogs over 100 are out of condition.  If you mean that no 65 cm can go over 100 in be in competitive condition, I suppose I would grant that 100 is pretty much the upper limit for 65 cm dogs in shape.

Even in good shape my Bodo son had to stop competing at 7 yo as I wore out his shoulders with all that jumping.  He in turn had a daughter who was as strong as an ox and could retrieve boats in the ocean if she had to (she retrieved for years at the shore and crashed through the waves) and she weighed well over 80 in great shape. 

By the way, we worked with Mark Reed at the time he had Don v Rolansteich.  I never weighed Don, but I would be surprised if he wasn't at least 90-95 in great shape.  I wouldn't be surprised if he was over 100.

It does hurt the athleticism, MVF. I think it's the result of breeding for a big side gait AKA the exagerated flying trot. It's about show wins, not about performance.

So Dylan was right on according to your calculations. He was heavier before the chemo, but I considered him overweight then. As it turned out the extra weight was a good thing since it gave him a reserve to fall back on during his treatments.

I've owned male Malamutes that often surprised me when they stepped on the scales.  One  24 1/2" male, weighed 84 lbs and was in good show weight, not fat. Another male of the same weight was a good 1 1/2" inches taller with a lot of leg hair so he looked like he had a lot of bone. He didn't, it was mostly coat. I think a lot of people assume that coats have more bone than stockhairs. Maybe some do, but the majoirty of the time I'd bet it's the coat and not the dog. Also oval bone is usually denser that round bone, so will probably weight more.

Interesting discussion.