I hope this is just a bad picture - Page 1

Look at this ad.

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/classifieds/75324.html

The dog looks positively sick and so unbelievably uncomfortable.

I hope it is a really bad picture!

 I think it's just a bad picture. he looks fine to me other than he is a young puppy pulling on the lead trying to get whatever he is looking at

Not my cup of tea, but I've seen worse. www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/classifieds/75353.html Really and truly though, it is hard to tell from one picture, especially of a very young dog, how it is going to turn out. For example, the dog you cited looks better in the several "stacked" photos which are posted as a link on the pedigree.....

Just looked at both links...AnjaBlue, I think the dog in the first post sure looks better than the one in the second.  Although I do realize that I'm no expert, and that pictures aren't always the best way to judge a dog, the dog in your link looks very short bodied, to me.  The standard calls for the dog to be longer than tall, and this dog looks like he is shorter than tall.  This is the actual picture from the ad, Sugovical Bacsor Negus is his name.  What I'd like to know, is what this dog would look like standing four square.  Would he still appear to be shorter in length than he is tall? 
Crys

Here are some pictures of my girl Virgo, in various growing stages starting with 24 days old,
she is the smallest GSD I have ever owned, weighing in at 60 pounds at 17 months.
I don't think a puppy's structure changes by extreme measure when they are all grown, I think you can tell
from a very young age what you will end up with as an adult.
Some pictures are good and some not so good, I can't see any extreme angles in any of her pics...

.....sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words...

Where is the ladder???
It looks like these dogs are going up a flight of stairs!!!!!

I had to post again on this topic...

A little more slope to the topline on the above dog, and the poor dog would look like he was sitting down, with his rear legs stretched out behind him. And judges really think these poses are pretty? I'd like to know exactly what they show the judges about the dog. Mirasmom, the pics you posted of your dog, to me, show a good working lines dog, no extreme angulations. But then, workinglines folks don't generally breed for extremes. I just wonder why the showring asks for such extremes. If a judge can't really tell what makes a good GSD as opposed to a Greyhound, then perhaps dog shows need to be restricted to breed shows, not all breed show. Maybe then the judges would work toward a more uniform breed, both in appearance and in working ability. When I look at a pic like the one above, it curdles my stomach to see an otherwise beautiful dog so over angulated. Is the gait so important as to sacrifice everything else? I wonder what the shortened body does for the gait?

And just in case someone's fixing to flame me for my statements, I have always liked the appearance of a properly proportioned, black and red showline GSD. The proportions of the GSD pictured at the top, right of any page on this forum, just above the words "Quick Search", are very nice, in my opinion. I think that dog is very handsome. I find myself leaning toward the working line GSD, not because I don't appreciate the beauty of a well bred showline, but because so many out there are breeding for the extreme angles the above dog has, and that's not beautiful. A flowing gait is only a small portion of the whole puzzle.  Yes, the Shepherd needs to be able to trot all day, as herding might require, but I'd like to see one of these dogs actually trot all day.

Temperament, size, color, gait, coat, proportions, all of that are part of the GSD.  I thought, many years ago, that I wanted to breed GSDs, but the more I see and learn about the breed and the divisions within it, the more I wonder if that's a good idea.  Very few breeders out here are actually breeding for the standard; too many seem to be breeding for what they (or a current fad) happen to think is the thing, and I'm not sure that's the way to go.  I understand that as time goes on, breeds change, all things change.   But there's no reason to change a breed so much for the appearance alone.

Crys