Ursus free? - Page 1

Why is this important for some breeders to state. Why is it better to be Ursus free? Were their problems with Ursus? I'm still learning! Thanks Von Leistung

Ursus tends to throw a lot of monorchid dogs in his offspring or further down the road.

Welcome to GSD's!

Actually, "Ursus-free" are for those people in the West German show-line breeding community who already have GSDs who are heavily line-bred on the SGR VA1 Ursus Batu since he has been a super-popular stud. Obviously too much of a good thing can be bad in anything, so this gives these breeders alternatives with still high caliber bloodlines.

There are "Fero-free" alternatives also for the WGR working dog community as well. This means the exact same thing-this heavily used stud Fero Zeuterner Himmelreich is a fabulous male and produced great, but some dogs are already heavily line-bred on Fero, so those people want alternative bloodlines instead of concentrating the Fero bloodline more. Thus, the Fero-free dogs come into play.

It doesn't have anything to do with their being problems in the bloodlines or with those particular dogs. I have line-bred on Ursus (up to 3x in 5 gens), own an imported Ursus granddaughter used in breeding, own an imported Ursus great-granddaughter used for breeding, and never have yet to see a single cryptorchid case. Just a personal note with my own Ursus bloodline experience.

Most people post that, including myself, simply because Ursus progeny are saturated all over the world.

Many are already line bred on him and it is important not to triple or quadruple up on a dog that is close in the pedigree because of the above problem as well as many others that can pop up when line breeding gets frequent and close on one dog.

Although I have to say that Ursus is a GREAT dog and many of the progeny now have him back in 3rd or 4 th generations which is thinning him out some.

Hope that helps.

Debby

http://castlebrookshepherds.net

Considering Ursus is 13+ now, I highly doubt anyone will see any of his yearling or younger pups available anymore. I've got Ursus-Yasko-Sherry Kirschental, Ursus-York Bullinger, Ursus-Yasko-Espirit Athene, Ursus-Rapunzel Arminius, and Ursus-Yasko-Larus Batu. So my Ursus isn't just from one individual. The generations from Ursus helps bleed it out a little but still keep the quality.  Ursus produces very nice work ethic, size, pigment, and soundness for a WGR show dog. It's no wonder he's in so many pedigrees!

I was looking at a number of Ursus progeny and it appeared that there was a lot of extra flesh unders some of the off-spring.  Am I seeing things or is this true.  ecs

West German showlines were getting concentrated on just a few dogs, and Ursus was one of them. He was a fantastic dog, but when lines get too concentrated with just a few dogs in all bloodlines this concentrates the gene pool too much and problems can start cropping up. I'm not saying they are cropping up with Ursus progeny. My current pup is linebred on Ursus and has two big ones: I've not heard of testicle problems with Ursus offspring.

Concentrating on just a few sires is typical for all breeds, not just GSD, but it's GSDs I am most familiar with. The sire goes VA1 in Germany and everybody wants to breed their bitches to him. In the U.S., it's the GSDCA National Specialty show that produces the popular Grand Victor sire everybody wants for their next litter. With a prepotent sire, one who produces good healthy  offspring who look and act like him. you can bet this dog will be in a lot of pedigrees and influencing the breed for years. The Wienerau and Arminius dogs were, and still are, in a LOT of German pedigrees. So were the Busecker Schloss dogs, even though the original owners of these kennels have all passed on. The Sieger Uran WildsteigerLand from years ago is still in lots and lots of pedigrees. In the SV, they get 90 breedings a year, IIRC, so that's a lot of puppies.

Seeing "Ursus Free" or any other stud-free ad or pedigree just means that  particular breeder decided not to go with the crowd for whatever reason. Sometimes the reason is health related, sometimes it isn't. You have to ask and hope they tell you the truth.

I re-read my post and I did not understand it either.  I ment to say there seemed to be a lot of fleshiness under the neck area.   Not due lap but close to it.  Am I wrong?  ecs

LOL-ecs. I've seen what you mentioned and understood exactly what you were talking about, but I haven't noticed it with Ursus progeny in particular. My profile pic is one of my home-bred 'pups' at 15 mos old that I kept-he's line-bred 4-4 on Ursus and he doesn't have excessive flappy skin. Same male.

Ursus was one of the best producing stud for the high lines. I was fortunate to have seen him once in Deutschland back in 2000 when he won the sieger show there.