Estahaus, against the grain? - Page 1

Up front, I don't know anyone associatd with Estahaus kennels. Many discussions have taken place on this site concerning the crossing of German Lines with American Lines and except for an occasional dissenting voice, the cries have been something along the lines of "crossing any line of GSD's with American show lines is just EVIL and stupid". I bring this up again because every so often the kennel name of "Lenny of Estahaus" pops up, on this site, other GSD sites and in private emails to me. I once posted that I wanted feedback to thoughts I was having about doing such a cross because of the close genetic pool German lines have. They are like "Kissing Cousins". If you are not in the U.S. and never heard that term, email me and I will explain (I'm a hillbilly and know what it means). It just can't be a good thing and I don't see how it can be "fixed" without using everything available to us. After the previous discussions here, I dropped my thoughts about crossing with Am. show lines and decided that a better way to go would probably be crossing with a Czech working line. I want the work ethic but also want the "looks", but more importantly want to enlarge the gene pool to get away from the kissing cousins thing. Anyway, my research reveals that the Estahaus kennel is highly sucessful, well thought of, and produces very desirable GSD's, for the usual desirable traits, temperment, hardiness, nerve, health, structure, etc., etc. This kennel is apparently well thought of by many knowledgeable GSD enthusiasts, both show lines and working lines. The thing is, "he" has experimented with crossing Am. show lines with German Import lines for many years and that is how he is getting many of his well thought of and desired dogs. I do not have anywhere near his knowledge and experience, but he had to start somewhere, as we all do. So here is my question. What is the answer to the "small" genetic pool we now have? Just "best to best" and hope for the best? Or "Judges who will not keep giving the VA's and top V's to the sons and daughters of previous winners"? Or, "Limits on the number of offspring any one dog may have"? Or "Leave it to us pro's, you idiot"? :) I would like to read the opinions of those here whose knowledge I have learned to value. Like BoB-O, Hodie, VomFelsenHof, GSDlvr2, Preston, DesertRangers, ProudShepardPoppa, AlphaPup, Blitzen, Yellow Rose of Texas, GsdFan, LMH, Shelly Strohl, Get a Real Dog, EchoMeadows, (okay, I left several out but this is getting rediculous). No need to respond Funk, I already know your response, "leave it to us pro's, you idiot" :) By the way, I have never bred a litter of German Shepards in my life. Had Siberians and Chows though. Chow puppies will fight to the death at 5 and 6 weeks of age, with their litter mates (but I digress:)

Do Right, wow, you are also up late tonight. I think that carefully-planned outcross breeding is the only way to rid ourselves of roached backs, long stretched backs, fallen pasterns, sickle hocks, heavy short skulls, skinny stretched skulls, steep croups, etc. Not that any of us want to try and resurrect SZ 1 Horand von Grafath, but through our breeding desires we have produced at least two (2) and many would say three (3) very distinctively different lines of the same dog who very nearly represent different races of canine, and we have doen it in but one-hundred (100) years. I continually rant about the one (1) F.C.I. standard that our breed clubs and associations continue to ignore for conformation judging. But, I guess those are the two (2) show dog worlds and I will eventually digress. Yes, they are all descended from the same two (2) breeding pairs, but genetics can be remixed and redistributed with powerful and intended results if one does the homework and stays at it long enough, such as in the case of Estahaus kennels. Successful outcross breeding will determine that not every dog/bitch from every litter will look like the heavy-skulled red/black specimen with the roached topline from the German examples, or the light-skulled tan/black specimen with the straight, long back and sickle hocks of the American examples. As these characteristics were purposely developed through genetic selection, they can be forced into hiding. But I think that would take at least thirty (30) years of careful selection to force the breed back into compliance with the world standard. You may often hear me use the term "to the old world standard" to describe my favourite type of dogs. Back at a time when most S.V.-types and A.K.C.-types still had very much in common. But, in the U.S.A. that seemed to end with the introduction of the Lance of Fran-Jo and the heavy brother/sister, father/daughter inbreeding that resulted from those who wanted to reproduce his type and quality. And the later quest during the late 1960's to write a new unofficial breed standard and create the "new" A.K.C. GSD who is the same one that we see today in the A.K.C. ring. The West Germans took the same approach with a different set of goals and achieved different results in a identical manner. Hence, the two (2) distinctly different show-lines. Bob-O

Very knowledgeable and right on, as usual Bob-O. I don't see any other way around it. In another hundred years, I can imagine what we will have. There will always be the exception but basically, we will have three TOTALLY different breeds of Shepherds. One that has no clue about shepherding, one that can still "do it", and one that has a faint memory of shepherding but has to be taught everything. When I refer to "shepherding" I refer to the natural instinct this particular breed of dog originally had of instinctually protecting its masters family (the dogs "flock"). You will be able to tell them apart a mile away and the AKC, SV, FCI, etc. will classify them as separate breeds and no registration "papers" will be issued for "crosses". I will be long dead, but hopefully my grandson will have pictures of grandpa's dogs and have them in the lineage of his dog. And hopefully he will delight in telling how grandpa had a very small part in preserving the integrity of the GSD, by working to keep the breed one breed and not like "Chevrolet, a division of General Motors". I'll explain that. If you are famaliar with the Chevy Nova of yesteryear, it was of course made by Chevrolet, owned by General Motors. Well, it was so popular that the other divisions of General Motors, like Buick, Pontiac, etc., all wanted to us the same basic parts for their cars. So, the solution was to have the Nova, the Omega, the Volarie and the Apollo for each of GM's Divisions. The first letter of each models name spelled out "NOVA". The tail ights and a few other little things were different for each model but basically they were all the same car (betcha none of ya'll knew that little bit of motor vehicle trivia:), anyway, that is what we are having now. Three differet models of the same dog, with little differences. On the cars, the parts were interchangeable. Are our three lines of dog genes interchangeable? IMO it may be too late and may not be desired by each ones fan club. The most ardent are the working line fans. But old Max had a vision of a dog that bred true to form in structure and looks, but admittedly with the most emphasis on loyalty, courage and working ability. Can we get that thru the working lines? Maybe (IMO best chance). Can we get that through the German show lines? Perhaps. Can we get that thru the American bred show lines? No way Jose. Is there an American bred working line? By diffinition, yes, but realistically there is not. The breed is too young. And you are correct Bob-O, I need to get my butt in bed. Meathead and Socks will be waking me up too damn early :)

With any line mixing outcross whether it be AmxGer or Ger show x Ger working, etc. I believe it is the long term that will produce what is desired. Generations of careful breeding. Starting with Am showlines, as you know, I feel at minimum would be starting at a significant disadvantage with regards to working abilities. Sure it is possible to be satisfied with an end result like Estahaus has but why start with the deck stacked against you. Estahaus unlike many other showline breeders also titles many of their females to SchH3 although I would like to see their scores, but they obviously care enough about the working GSD to continue past a SchH1. Like others have mentioned, some Am showlines aren't half bad LOOKING, even causing me to give a second look and check the catalog to see if his/her parents are German. But thats ONLY because they appear to have more German conformaton, nice substance, bone and color. But that is few and far between. And even if they apprear to me pleasing to the eye, theres no PROOF that they can work. JMO.

I am not sure how up todate the website is for Estahaus, but I went and checked out some of the females and males listed on the site. Maybe I am blind but I didn't see that much mixing of current AM and German lines. The SchH3 female I looked at had AM CH and Select Champions in her dam line, but these were dog from 20 years ago when the AM dogs were close decendents of German dogs, before the AKC people decided to go way way off from the standard. So really how far against the grain is it? I don't see any of the highly used current AM bloodlines on his website. I will be doing some research for a possible breeding in two years or so for my young female. I have been offered frozen semen from a son of Marko vom Cellerland and an American Champion bitch (late 70's vintage). Interesting proposition, but lots of thought and reaserch to do yet. Is using old bloodlines a good thing or a bad thing? Would I be going backwards in structure of getting back to where it should be? I am going to have to set up to possibly keep the whole litter if the genes don't match up well and it is a bad thing. Lots to consider.

I've never bred a litter of GSD's and don't plan to ever do so, so I really don't have anything profound to add to this as far as specific breeding advice goes. Generally speaking, a shrinking gene pool is a concern in many breeds. IMO you who are breeding GSD's have a huge edge over most other breeds because you already have the opportunity to select from a diverse gene pool. By that I mean you have the workinglines, the showlines, the American lines, all purebred GSD's. As someone else said, breeding dogs in not a science, it's an art and the art here is being able to put aside your prejudices and look at each "line, "type", "strain" in a positive way and for what it could bring to the table for your breeding program. I know too well the feeling here about the American line dogs and understand that those who hate them and refuse to even look at them have good reason to feel that way. However, it is counterproductive to close the book on any dog that has not been whelped in Germany or from 100% German lines. Same for workinglines lines vs highlines. Good and bad everywhere. Assuming that every Am lines dog is a genetic disaster, a hock walker and a spook or that every German line dog is ugly with a banana back and an aggressively poor temperament or that all worklinglines are strusturally unsound maniacs is not going to work in favor of the breed in the future. I often wonder if those who generalize have even taken the time to REALLY look at the dogs they are condemning. One will not be turned into a pillar of salt from sitting at ringside at an AKC show with an open mind or by attending NASS or a Schutzhund trial with the same outlook. Not being a breeder is sometimes a good thing since it's easy for someone like me who has longterm dog experience to observe this breed in all venues. I own a 100% highline, but I have seen some excellent workinglines as well as some pretty good looking AKC dogs. If breeding good dogs were fast and easy, everyone would be doing it, wouldn't they? I believe Lenny posts to this board from time to time. I hope he will contribute to this thread, Preston as well. There is no substitute for actual experience.

WiscTiger, I wrote a response this morning which seems not to have either been posted or I screwed up and did not actually send it. You are quite correct based on my perusal of the web site for Estahaus that indeed, most of the dogs are, in fact, German bloodlines and probably imported. In the History section there are only a few dogs who appear to have been shown in AKC and have CH designations, but I did not look to see their pedigree. You are also correct about the dogs from many years ago being decendants of German dogs from many years ago. In fact, if you look at the long background pedigree of most American GSDs you will see German dogs long ago. So no, I also would caution Do Right about his observations. That being said, I have a beautiful half American, half German dog who I raised and showed and titled. He has always received V ratings from German judges, placed high in the very few AKC events we entered long ago (and were not treated very well by the AKC participants) and has earned a SchH2 at 9 years of age. He could have done his SchH 3, but he is slowing and the wall is tough now to easily scale. It is not worth injuring him. His health has always been outstanding and he is now 12 years old with excellent and viable sperm. Would I breed an American dog to a German dog or a Czech or any other bloodline? Yes, but I qualify this. Inherently, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with this and it does, in fact, expand the gene pool. The real issue should be why breed and what is it that any breeder is breeding for. So many say they want to "improve the breed", yet the ignorance of bloodlines, termperament, working abilities, conformation and other traits that make up a good GSD are severely lacking in most breeders. It is simple to get two dogs, even two nice dogs, and just mate them. What is the point? Unless one knows the faults of each dog, the strengths and has a clue about how genes and traits may or may not be expressed, breeding is likely to simply produce dogs. For me, I am not simply interested in producing more pets because God knows how many there are already who no one gives a damn about. Your comment about being set to keep an entire litter for life is an interesting one. I have done that with two litters and have learned much from doing so. I continue to study and clarify my goals and I hope to breed a nice litter in the future having done all the homework that should be done to produce really excellent all around GSDs. It is not so simple as so many think. And Do Right, you are correct about Czech dogs often being not only good working dogs, but having correct conformation. It seems to be mostly the Americans who breed dogs from working bloodlines with poor conformation thinking that only the working ability is important. There are a few exceptions to this statement, of course, Molly from Eichenluft being one. It is instructive to look at all the working line dogs offered from Europe on this site and note the differences in conformation. Of course, one can not evaluate working ability or temperament, or health or other factors, but I am always struck by how much better conformation wise many of these dogs are as compared to the American bred (but from German lines) dogs I see.

Good post, Hodie.

Blitzen, Your post is right on!!! And yes, too bad some people don't turn into a pillar of salt LOL! Cheers.

"leave it to us pro's, you idiot" Can someone provide me links to breeders whom breed for the "roach back" GSD? Please.