Franken Dogs - Page 1

Is it my imagination or have a lot of these straight backed breeders gone a little overboard with the idea of big boned? When I was a kid growing up the German Shepherds I remember were around 70lbs give or take a few pounds for males, and 60+ pounds for females. Now I see all of these German Shepherds advertised as straight-backed, old style but the straight backed old style I grew up with didn't weight 90lbs and the sure didn't weigh 140lbs. I'm lucky that I found one breeder in the states who breeds to form. However, I would love to find another breeder, or two that breeds old style, straight backed German Shepherds that don't weigh more than my Great Dane weighed. Make sense?

So far, I find myself going and looking at the East German Working lines. What are your thoughts about many of these kennels breeding franken shepherds? And I know I'm not wrong. I spoke to my friend's dad, who grew up in Germany and is in his 80's now. He told me that he had many German Shepherds as a boy and that no other dog would do for him. He said he had Dobermans and loved them but the GSD was just the perfect dog for him because it was always thinking and assessing every situation. He also told me that all of his dogs weighed about 70lbs or so for males but never any bigger.

Straight back, old style, big boned is the market reaction to the half dog, half frog debacle.

The whole old style, straight back schtick is using up the last bit of remaining credit in the breed bank.

On the bright side, when every line of every breed is destroyed by greeders we can all start again.

Breeders that prove their dogs with work, hang in there, we need you now more than ever.

Yes, it is your imagination. Get real. Buy the dog you like. Whatever flavor. Not all are within standard. Learn to know the difference.

Beetree, nah, it's not in my imagination. I said that because I wanted to see who else was looking. First off, all of these roach backed GSD's are what has forced many breeders to try to recreate what they believe the ideal was for the original GSD. But the man who created the GSD didn't create a 140lb dog. Look at what he originally bred dogs for. He wanted a dog that could work all day without getting tired but would also be a loving member of the family and safe around children.

Now we have people mixing other dogs in to the GSD to create something else. When I hear someone talk about their 150lb GSD I cringe. These dogs are supposed to be a medium sized breed. Show me a medium sized breed that weighs over 100lbs.

No, I didn't come here to argue. I just wanted to see how many other people are tired of breeders claiming that they are breeding old straight back dogs but are going outside of the breed established by Max von Stephanitz. I believe the Altdeutsche Schäferhunde comes closer to this breed standard as many breeders in Europe have tried to hold on to the original dog that the world fell in love with.

So, while dogs may not all fall into a standard, I'm speaking of giant shepherds and the only way to accomplish this is to add something else into the mix like one of those large, wolfdog breeds from Czech area and then breed it out by a few generations. This way a genetic search would only show trace elements of said dog that was added. I mean, think about it. Have you seen the guy on the web that is selling monster sized Pit Bulls? How do you think they got to be that size? I don't care how many pit bulls you pair, you're not going to get a 100lb plus pit bull because they don't weigh that much. A mastiff will: yes, but a pit bull won't.

Mastiff, mastiff, mastiff myasstiff, the go to breed to increase bone, size and massive head amongst unscrupulous breeders is more often than not the St Bernard.

I believe a number of breeders have mixed in the Yugoslavian Sarplaninac Dog was well as the Russian Ovcharka. Both are large breed shepherd type dogs and this would allow breeders to maintain the personality while increasing the drive of the dogs. In fact, I know that many of these larger, straight backed breeders are using the Sarplaninac to bump up the size. And if you look at them, they sort of resemble Great Pyrs but without the health problems and different coloring that would be in alignment with the marble or sable color of many GSD's. A St. Bernard would completely screw up the coloring of a shepherd.

A working line mature male gsd should never ever weight less than 95 pounds with slight show of ribs... it's a working dog and must remain powerful .. if you want a 55 pound dog get a Mali ..I don't give a shit what the breed creator intended or what the hell the AKC judge wants or thinks .. I wanna see thick , deep Chested , big head with powerful limbs and neck.

There is not a lot in favour of a large dog for work, the only gain you get is wow factor possibly.

You have way more to lose when size goes up than you have to gain.

There are some outliers that are good and big, the norm for good working dog is not big in pretty much every working venue.

Bite strength is not even related to head size as most big dog lovers often, wrongly, believe.

 

I notice the good Czech breeders are finally stopped marketing how massive their dog's bone and head is and are going for a much more functional, smaller, faster dog. Not surprisingly they are also doing much better in international trials than ever before.

 

Some clowns still  maintain the old style, massive head/bone thing tho for the noob market.

Shaw a dogs power does not come mainly from weight it comes from condition exercise a gsd in the standard weight will last a lot longer move a lot quicker and with the right condition do more damage than the heavier dog . And u don't care about the breed standard . It says a lot about your knowledge about the breed and the damage u are willing to do to get a man eater

In fairness a biomechanically perfect big dog that has a balanced structure and perfect cardio, tendons, muscle fibre is equal or better to a smaller dog. The problem is every defect from perfection amplifies and debilitates much more rapidly than the same defects in a smaller dog and there is your problem.

Not to mention that big dogs are just impractical for nearly all real working venues.

 

Even worse the big dog is going to take longer to train, be more injury prone and will retire earlier. Not very efficient or economical should those factors matter.