French Ring & GSD - Page 1

     I am just curious if there is any known kennel or GSD line that breeds specifically with French Ring in mind. It seems the majority of breeders breed for Schutzhund, which I guess goes to the SV. From what Ive seen or heard is that the Malinois is bred for the intentions of doing French Ring. Being that Belgium borders are French and German, why aren't there more GSD's being bred for French Ring? Is it just that the Malinois is naturally better at French Ring? Or is it that the SchH title is too important to have, due to getting a breed survey in order to make puppies ($$$)?

      Just something thats on my mind. Thanks

The main kennel that I have heard of for producing GSD for french ring is du val hurles vent out of France.  I have not had any luck getting their English version site to come up lately.  Here is that address in case it starts coming up again or is a problem on my end.  http://www.bergerallemandhurlevent.com/indexgb.htm

Many GSD are too large to reach the maximum height on the jumps that are required in French Ring.  This would be one reason why the Malinois is the prefered breed for French ring.  Also, the decoy is against the dog so every meter he/she can get away from the dog, points get taken from the dog.  A smaller and faster dog has advantages there also. 

Hope this helps a bit,  Robin

www.klatolklin.com

I dont understand why the GSD cant be bred for both Schutzhund and Ring. Why do we have to have GSD's that are so big that they are slow and less agile? If the GSD was a little smaller, there would probably be less issues dealing with hips and elbows, right?

WOW!  That is an excellent question!  Maybe you can get Videx to explain to you why the GSD should be larger, after all he thinks that the current breed standard for height is rediculously low. 

There are plenty of GSDs that can do the ring sports. The problem is that few people are training them for that sport. Why should they when they could have the best ring dog in the world and the dog would not be breedable by SV standards? I had a Rottweiler that could do the minimums and there are Malinois that are 80+lb that do ring maximum jumps.

Ring was dominated by the GSD until the late 70's have GSDs change that much?

I don't know if it's a size issue with the GSD, as Beaucerons are known to excel in French Ring... and they are heavier and larger than GSDs. HOwever, they also have straight backs, like the Malinois. Do you think it might be a question of croup angulation?

That ideal 45-degree makes for maximum distance coverage horizontally trotting, but limits maximum "vertical takeoff"? The shepherds of the 70s were less angulated than the dogs of today. Do you think there would be a performance difference between West and East (DDR) lines in the French Ring arena?

Beaucerons are heavy. 90 - 110lbs is normal. FCI standard states Beaucerons as

"...big, solid, hardy, powerful, well built and muscular, but without lumber."

Height at the withers :

Male :    from 65 cm to 70 cm.

Female : from 61 cm to 68 cm. [source]

 

While we all know that FCI states the iedal shepherd as "62.5 cm for males and 57.5 for females."

Curious to hear your opinions / experience.

-Silverbolt Prime<

Per your question regarding kennels that traing and breeds dogs for french ring you just have to check their officaial us website.we have many top tops here in the usa and per your question why people are doing more ring sport i been told by many top experts in the sport of frencch ring is har

french ring sport is harder to title due that the trials are harder to score and the decoys are faster and unpredictable as sch.some of the top dogs in the sports are a GSD and not many gsd owners train for french ring sport because is so hard to pass baret title that many dogs will not pass this test.as per kennels that traing and breed  for this sport check the official usa website  www.NARA.COM lots of good info and more details on the sport.

French Ring is harder... It's not something that you can buy a title for in a few weeks' time. (Not that I'm insuniating SchH titled are all bogus, but I've knows a few dogs that have had titles "bought" in Germany.) I owned a French Ring GSD back in the day. It's also less well known.

A lot of the NARA events do not allow spectators; only participants. There was a large one in the mid-west a few months back was a closed trial. I think that dissuades a lot of potential participants because they can't go to visit and see what French Ring is all about.

Schutzhund is more publicized and "user friendly." I've never heard of a closed SchH trial.

Here are afew pics of my Beauce-boy's father doing Ring. I love his object protection work. Seneque.

The knock on French Ring seems to be  that often a dog with weaker grips can often slide. 

IMO... the PSA, KNPV, Czech (ZVV or SVV) tend to be the most strenuous in terms of difficulty & bitwork.