The decline of the German Shepherd character - Page 86

Bebo, that's is NOT amusing at all and you are a jackass for thinking it is. You are a  very cruel and stupid person.

Gustav - I too spoke to and admired Alfred Hahn.  He had so much valuable knowledge about the breed.  He stood up to Hermann Martin and it was sad to see him pushed aside, it was a loss to the breed.

Mackenzie

blitzen, my comment that seems to offend you is from advice given to a want to be breeder by an SV judge. I show dogs, I like it and own s/l exclusively. I will hazard to guess that I have shown more breeds at a higher level than 99% of the posters here including you.

I have yet to see one breed that has benefitted from or had it's orginal purpose improved by being popular in the show world. That's just my experience and I have no intent to apologize for it or side step people so thin skinned that they can not participate in a public dicussion  without being offended by any view different from their own.

Thanks for making my point, ILMD. 

No post for three days now.  Looks like we are all done here.

Mackenzie

Despite no posts for five days the viewing have gone up by over 3000.  To me this indicates that there is still interest in this topic out there and, I wish, if that is so then more new posters would come forward.

Mackenzie

sure the thread workline v showline is takeing the same route as this one alot of arguments that will end up no where it always end up with dog is better WL or SL

It was a great thread Mac. Cudos for starting it. Wait 6 mos. and we can do it again.

I have read every post and here is what sticks in my mind:

1. Duke, the trainer in Europe, test approx. 1000 dogs/year and finds approx. 200 for real world application. That's 80% failure rate among dogs bred supposedly for work. He finds none from s/l.

2. susie, the poster from Germany, says the GSD can be found in whatever package one wants, s/l or w/l.  I agree with this 100%. I doubt anyone who has ever seen Quanta Plassenburg would say a civil s/l can't be had. I think she also has a litter mate in LE in the U.S.

3. Blitzen thanked me for making her point and I have no idea what the point was.

almost forgot, joan and hans don't seem to be fond of each other, but both a wealth of info.

approximatly half the dogs tested were breeds other than gsd

Duke, page 96:
'the only place were showlines are used by police and army today is in hollywood movies, I provide dogs for law enfocement professionally, I place around 200 a year probably test a thousand, let me enlight you  ZERO showlinedogs  50 to 60 % german shepherds 20 to 25 %  GSD and/or Mali mix and maybe 20 % malinois.'
'several departments in USA and victoria police australia to name a few only take GSD
so I guess the workingline GSD isnot doing that bad at all.'

After all off the discussion that has taken place in this thread I would like to say that there are conclusions that should be made. Whether people want to reveal their own conclusions or not is for their own concience. However often this subject is raised it must always be considered from time to time to help us and guide the newbies to the importance of character in the German Shepherd Dog.

My own conclusions here are as follows in random order so that readers will not think that I am trying to be unfair overall towards others own concluions.

1. It appears to me that when the puppies are born they have all the required senses to develop their own individual characters. Nature gives that to all puppies whichever side of the fence they are born to.

2. Once the puppies arrive then man takes over the development of the character to modify the essentials provided by nature to suit their intended use of the dogs.

3. Not enough attention is paid to the development of the characters for one reason or another. Show dogs get limited development and by this I mean in terms of just fundamental training to help the dogs understand the rules that they will live by. The sport dogs are better trained because to compete the dogs training is taken to much higher levels. The demands on these dogs is often taken to excessive levels which sometimes takes the dogs to a point in which they become unreliable in everyday circumstances. I am referring here to the high demands in the bite work albeit that it is important in character assessment.

4. Training at whatever level when done properly improves every dogs quality of life . Lack of training is the problem where people duck out with excuses. Not enough time to train, too many dogs to train, this dog is useless, it's bad weather and so it goes on. Training takes time, patience and knowledge. The knowledge comes from hard work and the ability for the trainer to learn and understand how to get the best from a dog.

5. More readers should post so that a better understanding and interpretation can come forward otherwise the viewpoint becomes too narrow.

Finally, we should try to be understanding and respectful to other posters whose views may be different to or own.

Mackenzie