Anyone have Kimmelot shepherds? - Page 1

Thanks TIG!

Tamara, I noticed your ad "AKC female looking for stud in California" since I am in California " Are you looking for info on Kimmelot in general or your girl specifically?  I see that you are new to the board. Have you lurked for any length of time? If not please understand that the comments I'm about to make come from a long and deep concern about what is best of the German Shepherd breed. Is your girl the first GSD you have owned? I see on the web that you also have a Dobermann bitch that you just bred and that Sapphire is only 19 months of age. Can you tell us why you have decided to breed her? What kind of work do you do with her? Does she have any titles in Schutzhund, herding, obedience? Have you shown her in a conformation setting either in AKC or a German style show and if so what rating was she given? Many (unfortunately not all) stud dog owners will be asking you some of these questions as well as if you have done her OFA xrays.

You state that " Im keeping a pup from her litter for show/schutzhund so want good drive and still win in the show ring".  A big order in GSDs even for breeders who have been in it for years. If that is truly your goal, you should start out by titling and showing the dam(Sapphire) first because in GSDs that is one of the prime ways of showing breed worthiness. Also how can you hope to produce something that you haven't even tried to do yet. Training and titling is a learning journey about you, and about the dog - it's strengths, weaknesses.
 
By merely by looking at her pedigree, I suspect you have much to learn before you get into the breeding of GSDs. If you want a dog that you can show and/or trial then you really need to be looking for parents and grandparents and great grandparents who have done exactly that. The proof is in the pudding so to speak. Instead you have purchased a bitch from a breeder who obviously puts no value on either titles or show conformation ratings as her dogs have neither. Plus if you were up front with her about your goals, imho she has done you a great disservice as she has sold you a bitch with a pedigree that is an anathema to serious GSD fanciers. ( I will explain why in the next post).

Does this mean that you will be unable to find a stud for your bitch. Unfortunately probably not because this is Amerika where money can buy just about anything. I do not know your bitch because I have not met her. She may be a very nice bitch but even if that is true you have chosen an uphill road for yourself  IF you truly care about the breed and breed not for money but to preserve and improve. IF those are your true goals I would suggest using Sapphire to learn. Show her. Train her in either herding or Schutzhund the historical breed worthiness venues and anything else that interests the two of you. Learn how a GSD thinks and acts. Learn how to recognize drives and abilities and conformation. Go to shows and trials to watch listen and learn. Then seriously seriously consider the possibility that another dog from better breeding would serve you better. I am not saying get rid of Sapphire. God Forbid. Love her and treasure her. Learn from her and use the time that you are doing that to learn what exactly you want to accomplish and what lines will help you do that and who the good breeders of those lines . All of this will take time. A lot of time. I welcome you to the breed with the hope that you will learn to truly love and care for it  and to know that sometimes that means you have to make tough decisions.

Here are some of the reasons that I feel Sapphire'spedigree would be an anathema to most serious GSD fanciers.
1. First two generations - no working titles or show ratings and very little hip/elbow certifications.
2. Plus some of the hip certifications are fraudulent. Envyme is NOT OFA good. see offa.org The only way you can find him is by his AKC DN # and the notation merely says shows only as a parent and he has no ofa number or rating.
3.This also brings us to Soda who shows up in OFA as having an elbow rating but NOT a hip rating. Since most  people take both xrays at the same time, the presumption usually is that she flunked the hip xray and is dysplastic ( you may want to ask the breeder for the copy of the OFA report on her).
4.Soda shows two progeny in the db. Sapphire's dam is fair and her litter sister is dysplastic. One of the things you want to do is look at sibling depth on hips because it does increase likelyhood positively AND negatively.
5. So on the dam side of the pedigree first and foremost you lack info on two whole lines - Soda's and Envyme's dams. Next Hope's sire is unrated on hips or elbows and her dam is only rated on elbows thus likely dysplastic in the hips
6. Moving to the sire's side of the pedigree, once again you lack a dam lines info. However a bit of googling reveals that Mettle is a white longcoat GSD from Scotland breeder of white and blue longcoats in the business for FIVE whole years at the time Chaos was born. The problem there becomes getting accurate info so you have an informed view of the genetic possiblities in your breeding.  This is apart from the rather inflamed points of views you will get about the breeding of whites and especially white longcoats.  All I will say is whenever humans breed soley for one trait whether it be color or side gait  or crazy prey drive or coat length they inevitably do a disservice.
7. While Mettle has a very good BVA hip score of 4 her son Chaos is unrated. It is claimed he prelimmed OFA  but he does not show up even as a prelim in the OFA db ( and yes prelims will show if owners give permission which if they pass and that is the sole xray the owners usually do). LFR has quite a number of dogs she claims prelims on that don't show up but several in the db that do show up as a prelim - Sapphire's dam Hope for example so Kimmelot does know how it works.
8. Sapphire's sire Chaos . His owner is wonderously proud of the fact that at a year he was 27.5 inches at the wither and they hoped he would reach to 29 inches they "claimed" his sire was. 

So to sum it up what do you have.  It appears that there has been no real clear vision of what is/was desired and where the breeder was going.  She has combined show and working lines without any thought as to complimentary type( which note I am not opposed to work/show crosses but I suggest you read an earlier thread called show/working cross done right). Then she threw in dogs that were being deliberately bred for disqualifying faults ( white, long coat, oversize). She has chosen not  to do or to ignore the results of the basic health screening most breeders do. She breeds dogs as young as 10 months of age.  She chooses not have any neutral evaluation of the quality of her dogs by not trialing or showing them. Finally you are given a pedigree which is missing FIFTY percent of the information ( tho given her website I would supect the missing bits are remnants of American showlines adding in yet another wide variable). How would you be able to remotely make informed decisions based on that is beyond me.

I'm sorry if I come across sounding harsh but when I see this kind of mish mosh and outrageousness  foisted on the unsuspecting public at prices that could get them a very well bre

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TIG,
You are always so diplomatic and well spoken. Thank you. By the way, I met you at the breed survey in San Jose a few years ago. We talked for a long time and I met your dwarf.

Candy