Max von Stephanitz and SV??? - Page 7

Who was Denlinger?
What was the interest of this person, working dogs or show dogs?

Over large and over square - like the "Alsation" lines in England?

It would make sence to me that breeding for working traits should come before breeding for beauty. Looks like Max got to a point whrere he liked the work ethic of his dogs enough to start to standardize the appreance into something that could work AND have a show quality.

That being said, it should be the goal of our present day breeders - Ability to work, working traits AND a standardized show quality appearance. Not just one part or another but all of it in the single package of a German Shepherd Dog.

That being said, some breeders ARE looking at the "whole" dog and doing just that, breeding for work and beatuy. Some working dogs are attaining a V rating and some show dogs are abe to compete with and beat working dogs........this is a good thing! Lets hope it continues and becomes much more common.

Denlinger wrote this book : 1949 - The Complete German Shepherd -- Milo Denlinger.  He is definetley from the American group and is very critical of the Germans, but he spoke very highly of the Captain.


I think that what was happening (and what I can visually gather from pictures) was that the dogs were getting very tall and leggy, and that they were getting short in the loin to the point that it was restricting the easy working trot.

For example :

1911/12 :    1921 :

1924 :   1925 :

Klodo's legs were shorter, and his loin longer than the dogs before him...he also looks like he was of a slightly heavier type.  From Klodo forward you tend to see dogs with a little more substance.  Now -- it's not nearly the same heavy types we see today....and it's still a lighter type then what you see from 1935 forward...but it is notable more substantial then what went before.

~Cate

putting the images next to each other its easy to see that the 1934 dog is shorter legged and longer crouped.
waht is scarry is putting the akc gsd 2008 champ in the mix, and this recent german sieger.......

how much is "the stack" and  how much is "actual conformaion"?

 

IS the American champ Woodside's Pacino? If he weren't stacked in such an extreme position, he wouldn't look too different from the 1934 SIeger.

Edit: checked my picuture file, and yes, that's Pacino.

Yes it is Woodside's Pacino, I got the photo from this database......

I do not like the stacking poses.....wish they were not so extreme.

Do you know this dog, does he have any drive?

What of his hips, elbows, heart, eyes, thyroid...etc?

I dont think most dogs can stack like the showlines without having weak ligaments....I know I can't get my female to put her hock on the ground like that unless I literally put weight on the right hock...which I wouldnt want to do.

~Cate

The show dogs are stacked daily frokm the age of 12 weeks, most likely keeping those ligements from tightening up, like a gymnasts flexability, not always bad form.  IT IS not natural to them, it has to be trained into them to walk into the stack. 

I find the severity of the stack interesting.  If a handler stacked a dog like the eariler ones, he/she would be fired for not having the front legs parrelle and the back streched more.

And wow, look at those chests, the early dogs are flat, the American look like a Pamela Anderson job!

The Woodside website has a less extreme stack photo: http://www.gsdbydesign.com/Woodside/Tony.htm

and here's a shot of him in motion: http://www.kaleefgsd.com/boys.htm

A friend was raving about him, and saying I should breed my bitch to him, but when I saw that pic of him in motion, I changed my mind!

Anyway, it would have been an unacceptably close inbreeding on Dallas, as they both have him as their grandfather.

"That being said, it should be the goal of our present day breeders - Ability to work, working traits AND a standardized show quality appearance. Not just one part or another but all of it in the single package of a German Shepherd Dog."

Sure, when our present day breeders can actually consistently reproduce working qualities, their appearance might seem less trivial.  But, priorities first.  Then, there's also the matter of aesthetics: what's attractive to some, is not so appealing to others.  I've never minded the looks of my own dogs, and I can't say I simply don't care, but a good looking dog can quickly be worthless with a single temperament flaw.  It's easier to assimilate a pronounced characteristic into your "mediocre middle", than to remove a serious weakness.  And, if selecting only from breeding stock that exemplifies each extreme (show/working) in it's best example would lend to less overall breeding, you could perhaps imagine an improvement in the breed.  But, it would also lead to tighter bottlenecks, which seems to be a great concern for some people.