Show and Working Lines, 2 separate breeds - Page 2

GSD is GSD.........there is only one breed standard. 

The GSD SHOULD be a hard working beautiful dog. GSD's should not look like street dogs, nor should they look like weird wedges......

Every GSD should be BOTH working and show COMBINED. There is only one breed standard. EVERY breeder should breed to the whole standard, not just the parts of the standard that suits his or her fancy.

Healthy show quality dogs that have the ability to do the work required of him.

Balance is the key.

Hello Gustav,

      I am not a prolific reader of pedigrees, so please excuse my ignorance if you start throwing names around! (I am familiar with a few, ofcourse.). To answer your question, what I mean by "balance" is a dog that embodies all the characteristics that we associate with a German Shepherd, without compromising the animals health, its owner's safety, etc...

I think that people far too often forget that Schutzhund is first and foremost a breed requisite. It is there to hopefully establish standards of well balanced temperament and working ability. It is secondarily a sport, and a sport that I am very fond of. Don't get me wrong, I love to see an EXTREMELY high prey dog fly through the air on a long attack, or see a 55-60lb high prey female take a 220lb helper down on the escape bite... But do I want it living in my house? Probably not. Also, many times in extreme prey sport dogs, as in nature, if you have an extreme of one characteristic, you have a deficiency in another area. Far too often I have seen HIGH HIGH prey dogs with one form of a grip problem or another. As a helper, it is just more work for me (But I still love it!) But is it worth the trade off of having a dog with genetically calm, full grips, and normal to high prey drive? Not to me.

To me, well balanced is a beautiful dog that can do all three phases of the sport, with full, hard, calm grips, and still be an outstanding family pet.

I don't have problem with any V rated GSD that can work no matter what lines its out of. In saying there should be 2 standards is an insult to working breeders who strive to maintain correctness, and to showline breeders who strive to maintain workability. Hate to break it to you, but for every outstanding dog, there is a pretty crappy dog from EVERY line, show or work.

The FCI structure standard is socially constructed, in other words the standard is made up sort of like a fairy tale. If the ideal showline structure was idea we would see it in the wild, like in a cheetah, a lion, or wild dogs. The standard is not ideal for function and is really just a gross exacerbation of what we made up and called pretty, much like the English bulldog. These gsd's that meet the so called "standard" often trot nice but are greatly compromised in agility and jumping. They are cripples. There are many people that claim "my V rated showline dog is very agile and jumps great", and they are right if they compare their dogs agility and jumping to a donkeys. But if they compared their dogs agility and jumping to that of a boarder collie or a malinois then there is no contest and the structurally correct gsd faults become very clear.

Yeah Wazup I said it :) lol I know I will hear some b/s but me like some nice working dog :) I don't care if he will be mix as long he is nice balanced dog :) Some people are little bit too much into this GSD vs every other breed out there, or Show vs Work lines. I just like working dog (Working stands for any dog that get's the job done not working line gsd). I am thinking of getting nice mix next time around I would kill for a nice cross of GSD and Dutch.

P.S (the corss would have to be done by someone that knows what he is doing, we are not talking here about upppss litter :) )

im going to wisper good for you!!!!

T

VonKohlenBerg it's called form follows function. In a "working" breed the structure should find itself, not by someone judges eye. 

Bancroft, I knew we would get back on the same page(smile), as for balance, if the VA dogs, Frei v Gugge, Marko vom Cellerland, Bodo and Bernd v Lierberg, Mutz v d Peltierferm, all consistently produced good working dogs, isnt THAT balance. How can the show people bitch,(Christsakes they are VA), the working people can't scream, (they all produced BSP participants), so why aren't we breeding these type dogs.(Hint: Maybe they were not the right color or extreme enough) But I THOUGHT we wanted balance, so how does the extreme get in the equation. People wake-up!!

How many showlines have you trained, Bancroft? I have yet to work any who have trouble in the jumps, or A-frame, or anything else.  I can think of one young male over the years with a very unsound rear, but his breeding was clearly quite poor. One other well bred male but he is badly dysplastic, its not his actual structure holding him back.

 www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/127275.html  This is one of my bitches. Showline, as you can see.  Poor bite my foot. I have yet to put her on an agitator she doesn't impress. She has a very big head for a bitch, her grip is SOLID.  At 7 she still hits like a truck. Look her up on youtube and see for yourself.

www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/127421.html Here is my other bitch. Poor photo, tbh. She is much more angulated than my other bitch yet twice as agile. I can take her into downtown and she can leap up unto high trash cans, walk along narrow window ledges. And to top it off she has an iffy hip and can still do all these things. Her angulation is no probelm for her. At 6 I will be running her in agility this year.

www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/538239.html This dog is a local police K9. He is BIG DOG.  I have talked to multiple agitators who have worked him and they all agree he has bone crushing grips. 

I am also raising a young showline bitch, good angulations...she can sail over my baby gate without trying, even at a gangly puppy stage.  Make no mistake, I deeply dislike OVER angulation nearly as much as I can't tolerate a weak or nervy dog.

The problem is not that showlines CANNOT work , its that time is not taken with them to train them right, and you are correct, they are titled once and that's the end of it, usually.  Quite a disservice to the dogs and the breed. I don't make sweeping statements about all working lines having bad structure because it simply isn't true, anymore than your generalization is. Open up your mind, Bancroft, you may meet some very good dogs that you would normally write off as "only a show dog".