Sometimes you need to look past the koolaid - Page 1

I sometimes wonder if people have forgotten how to look past the 'koolaid' so to speak and reconnect with reality and personal responsibility.  By the way I don't just mean dog people, it's a question I often maintain about society as a whole but, moving on.

So I'm going to engage in an exercise of looking beyond the koolaid.

Here is my little girl.
.

This is her pedigree.


This is her working.








And finally this is her being a member of the family. (I don't post images of my son, so you get her with one of the family cats instead. :) )



As we can all probably tell, I love my little girl. :)  I think she is the whole package when it comes to a working line GSD.  She loves Schutzhund (bless her patience for having to break me in to the sport), she is all drive and attitude on the field but with stable nerves and a good temperment that I can take her in to any environment and trust her.  I trust her in our house, with my young son and as you can see, the cats.  She is A stamp normal for her hips and her elbows, she has never had allergies or problems with food and has always approached new situations with a wag in her tail, ears up, total cool confidence.

So for a long while, though I hadn't bought her with the intent to breed her, I considered it.  After all, I love her, her temperment is wonderful, her attitude on the field is a firecracker, she's sweet, athletic, healthy, heck I even know her thyroid is perfect and I had full registration on her.

But then as I continued to work with her and learn more myself, I began to look at and understand her imperfections.

She's small.  As you can see, she is small.  Her max weight is 57lbs and though I've never put a measuring tape to her, if she meets minimum breed standard height, I'd be surprised.

Now I couldn't do a stack to save my life at the moment and if she were properly stacked she might have a wee angulation but let's face it, she's pretty level across the back, her ears are too big and I'm no conformation expert but I think her forearms might be too long?  About her only redeeming physical feature is she's got a nice tail carriage and her muzzle is broad rather than bitch snippy.

In her bitework, she has some technical flaws.  Things that are usually genetic based and that we are working through on the training field (with great success I may add!) but still, a genetic componant that is a weakness and there are pleanty of good bitches out there who don't have/pass on that issue.

She's gray and well ... I think she's beautiful, her face melts me every time but let's be honest, she is not a fashionable or desirable color/coat type for either side of the GSD debate.  Yes, she's a good pigment for a gray but there is no stunning darkness to her sable, no red richness in her browns and her coat is very, very slick.  There is no plushness to her at all, just that very thin coat.  I've never met her dam but she looks to have the same slick coat so, she comes by it honestly!

Finally, while for me at club level, learning the game she is a perfect work/sport partner,

(Whoops, hadn't realized my post got cut off...)

Finally, while for me at club level, learning the game she is a perfect work/sport partner, this at just that, club level.  I've been told that she will never go beyond club level, that she doesn't have it.  No skin off my nose as I don't have it either but should I still consider breeding her?

My heart's answer wants to be YES!  After all, she's a lovely temperment, well balanced nerves, athletic, physically healthy, passed all her certs, etc.

Reality, however, is NO.  There are plenty of breed worthy females in the GSD lines, who have all that I listed above and are also capable of being competition level dogs and producing competition level dogs.  They so far out class my little girl in every respect, except how much I love her.

So, I spayed her.

It was the responsible thing to do and I feel that it was on me as the owner to bear that responsibility.  Asking a breeder to hold your hand and spoon feed you is a bit of a cop out in my opinion.

We like to talk about breeder responsibility on this board but the truth is there needs to be owner responsibility as well.  Many people think they have the perfect dog, because they love their dog and that's okay but the truth is, no dog is perfect and instead of extolling the many reasons your dog should be breed on, how about sitting and thinking of the many reasons s/he shouldn't?

She is very nice looking...How old is she?

~Bob~

Thank you, Bob. :)

She turned 2 in February.

Oops, nevermind! Didn't read your whole post...

Hey you got a nice dog and you are having fun with her great.no dog is perfect even the ones that big breeders are breeding are not perfect .with that said,just because people think they have great dogs is not good enough reason to breed dogs.lot of responsible dog owners do not breed dogs.but there are also some stupid people who think they have to breed thier dog cause it is a good dog.Breeding should be left to serious breeders,and i do not mean all those breeders that are breeding out there even the ones whose dogs are shutzhund title.titles are also not a reason to breed a dog.like i say ,dogs should only be bread for a realreson or purpose and there are only handful breeders that are breeding for real purpose and job in mind.the rest is just breeding to sell pets for 1500 $ to pet homes,but in thier mind they think they are breedin to improve the breed.you are a responsible owner welcome to the club. have a nice one.

I do Mystere!  She's my travel buddy and helps me balance out the testosterone in the house.

Very refreshing post.  More people should be like you, RLHAR. 

Thank you, Sue. :)