The decline of the German Shepherd character - Page 66

We do tend to overlook the contributions of the female line. Males can produce a lot more progeny, I suppose that's why they are considered by most to be more imprortant in the big picture. Also we have better idea of what males produce bred to different lines and they are showcased a lot more than females. It probably would have been easier back in the day when the breed was young and there were only maybe 50, 100 GSD's of both sexes to use for breeding. Now literally thousands, maybe millions of GSD's in the mix, not all pedigrees verified with DNA so the gene pools are pretty much corrupted and breeding is more of a trial and error venture. If it works, stick with it, if it doesn't regroup. Still makes sense to breed only the best to to best and cull each litter judicioulsy keeping only the best for breeding and not count on any one dog in a pedigree to make up for dogs that aren't up to par.

There is also the concern which traits are inherited by which mode - recessive, dominant, sex linked, complete or incomplete penetrance, which modifiers are involved, are there mutations, etc? It's really hard ro breed good dogs of any breed. That why I don't try to do it anymore .

ibrahim, that shows the importance of breeding to famous males in showlines otherwise the pups wont go, in workingline my big clients dont give shit about who the sire is they want a dog that can get the job done, from some of my females all pups go to law enforcement or sport, none to pethomes, regardsless to what male I bred them to

many females are found in almost all of todays good workingdogs, I named some of them before

haska karthago, xanthippe blommerschot, konnie kornerplatz, Orla schiffslache, some other strong producing females , Uri van Adelrik, Elke and Evi seven bridges road

Ibrahim, I AM thinking, but I believe in science...

Truth is: Males are used because of

1. their performance ( winner of JHK or JK, VA rating od BSP participant )
2. their phenotype
3. politics ( the next VA male should be out of a VA male.....females are different, take a look )

Talking about showlines now these high rated dogs produce around 450 puppies/year for at least 3 years on the row, and the stud owners get very good females for breeding, not only crap. Guess there will be some good puppies? Guess there will be at least one male to keep the "line" going?

A good breeder tries to keep the the best puppy out of a litter of parents with similar (!) traits, but talking about "lines" from dogs generations ago forgetting all the dams doesn´t make sense. It´s ALWAYS 50 male:50 female, no matter what you want to believe, no matter if we are talking about dominant or rezessive. Think about this about 10 or 20 generations, and you know what I´m talking about.

Do you really think that you got a lot of genes out of an ancestor from 1514 ( that´s 20 generations back, in case the men have been 25 years old when they became fathers ).

 

Blitz et al thanks for your opinion on my opinion.

Hans how many outcrosses does it take to make yr 5 line theory not work?

while the concept of dominance is a pretty fundamental tenet of genetics, it's not 'a' gene that's dominant. instead, the concept of (autosomal) dominance, co-dominance, and recessiveness refers to the (expressive) relationship between the alleles of a gene (at the same locus).  also, the notion of dominance does not explain the cause and effect of allele expression across genes (via co-dependency, modification, and/or mutation). these relationships are explained by epistasis which seems pertinent to most of the above arguments. in fact, it is advances in our understanding of epistasis that has led to significant improvements in genetics beyond the classical paradigm.  moreover, just because inheritance has a probabilistic component, uniform distribution of genetic expression is far from guaranteed. also, there is a pretty significant difference between the probabilistic and stochastic aspects of inheritance.  assuming these concepts are understood, it's not that hard to see how particular complex genetic expressions can be captured, shaped, advanced, and kept 'alive' over many generations and how lineages can be forked in terms of (somewhat) different traits. many great breeders have exploited both dominance and especially epistasis whether they know/knew the theory or not, to create expressive longevity in their lines. staying in the german wl presence, otto grasekamop, alfons krone, herbert born, stefan schaub, georg tenbieg, karl deisenroth, and artur kemmer immediately come to mind as breeders with distintive, consistent, and imo valuable, lines to their names.

Bebo, yes much.

Mackenzie- You started the thread and then subsequently expressed dismay or frustration at the posts & comments about bitework. If I understand correctly you consider it off topic or a derailment to focus on bitework when the subject is character.

 

I believe you posed the question yourself- “What is good character?” Generally speaking, the basics of what people consider good character will be universal across all breeds. No matter what breed you are asking about, fanciers of that breed want to see- Intelligence, Discretion, Love of children, Loyalty, Obedience, etc, etc, etc.

 

When you start to delve into specific breed traits other indicators of character arise. A Pointer should point, a Retriever should retrieve, a Pit fighter should fight, etc, etc.

 

The GSD has been touted as a general purpose utility dog. One of the jobs the GSD can perform is Protection work. Not all breeds are capable of protection work and in fact relatively few breeds are supposed to include biting humans as a measure of good character.

 

Since the GSD can perform bitework, it makes available to us the best way for evaluating his character. We are able to measure traits through Protection (bitework) to a degree not available in any other venue. Obedience, Discretion, Mental Stability, the presence of Drives and their balance (or lack thereof), Athleticism, etc, etc, etc.

 

Evaluating through bitework is not just about aggression (or fight, or prey, or any other single trait). Pretty much any breed can be be trained to high levels of Obedience. Many breeds are intelligent and have Discretion. Plenty of dogs are stable and tolerant. Putting it all together under the stress of 'combat' enables a character evaluation not available otherwise.

 

IMO, a huge part of the problem is breeders who do not understand the importance of bitework and/or lack the experience to correlate what is reveled through bitework to the dog's character. This is not a uniquely GSD problem. Dobermann's and other protection breeds are suffering a similar fate.

 

When breeders fail to see the importance of bitework; character of a breed suffers. When breeders fail to correct imbalances or temperament issues reveled through bitework; character of a breed suffers.

Bebo, if I remember correct, through the interaction of epistasis the spectrum of phaenotypical ( not genotypical ) possibilities become BROADER than with "simple" genetics.
Same with epigenetics - more variations, not less, but still the same genetic structure (50% / 50 %) as a whole.

Susie,

Answer to your question: No really.

Very good post, very good reasoning.

 

Ibrahim

by vk4gsd on 20 January 2015 - 20:01

Posts: 3523
Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2012 12:42 am
"Cue tantrums from SL breeders."
 
There is no law or rule stopping SL breeders from using bitework as an evaluation tool. Failure to use the single most comprehensive tool is a choice.
So-called WL breeders who focus on reproducing extremes or specific traits at the expense of ballance have more in common with (some) SL breeders that they (or thier customers) will admit.