I am really confused - Page 2

YOUR usual "mean girl in ninth grade" blather. LMAO I tried to direct the OP to INFORMED and educated opinions to LEARN. One does not LEARN from such as you posting a picture with "I like this" especially with NO discussion or explanation of what makes that dog exemplary. Obviously, YOU lack the knowledge to explain anything of the kind. All he could learn from you, as is clear from your posts, is how to revert to the middle school behavior of an insecure adolescent mean girl who never grew up. As usual, your appearance on a thread is the signal to the devolution of any discussion, so time to abandon the thread. Adieu! LMAO

I like these two:

Karo van de Herdersfarm (Show)
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/123346.html

Bomber vom Wolfsheim (Work)
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/500731.html

Two nice dogs, miles, but why propagate the distinction?  Both dogs have working titles, both have been shown.  Bomber looks like he could stand in any show ring.

Maggie, you are such a turd. ALL you ever get on here for is name-calling. Freaking dork. 

Thus proving my point...again. LMAO Actually, Maggie, I normally skip right over your posts, as you never have anything to offer that we haven't all already seen in junior high. LOL It was much easier to do that with your prior avatar. Any any rate, now this thread will be about nothing but you're inane nastiness and replies to it. IOW, This thread is cooked.

My 2 cents, which is about what it is worth! : )

You ask about SHOW dogs specifically: my advice, READ the standard. Having read the standard, look at recent winners.  Understand that there are politics and downright money grubbing reasons that some dogs which do not meet the standard may win high awards, however, if  you want to know what is CURRENTLY winning, research current winners.  The GSD is lucky in that winners have writen descriptions of what the judge thought - this is like getting to talk to the judge about his/her decision, pretty neat!

As a fancier, you can only take the standard, the reason for which the dog was bred, and then try hard to produce an animal which adheres to these two ideas PLUS your own artistic touch.

Like any breed, the GSD has many, many "types". Sadly, like a few breeds, it has been torn apart into two (some could argue three) main "types".  My advice is to try and not, in anything you do, encourage this split.  

I think -springboarding off NoCurs very good post- the danger is, have we already slipped past the point of no return when it comes to have two very seperate goals for the GSD standard?

I've lost track of how many times I've heard high level showline breeders on both sides of the Atlantic insist they would never introduce a working line dog back into their breeding program and why should they?  If you're breeding for deep, red pigmentation, gaiting reach, strong secondary sex characteristics and 'pressence' then why would you breed a weedy looking working line dog into the mix?

Let's be brutally honest, sure you might get 1% very handsome puppy that brings on the 'working' characteristics of the GSD but what do you do with the other 99% who are going to either be too 'ugly' to breed on in show or too 'soft' to be useful as a working dog? 

The same mindset is on the working side of the world, where many breeders want dogs that can compete against the likes of Mals and Dutch and so emphasis is on drive, desire to work, heart for the fight or at least that 'go all day' temperment that makes many working line GSDs so damn hard to live with for the 'normal' pet family.  Does someone who is trying to breed more and more drive want to risk a cross back into the 'softer' showline and again, maybe end up with 1% being the cross but the other 99% being useless?  (The term useless is used here in terms of breeding, not in the sense of dogs being useless)

It's not unlike the drastic split you see in the Hunter/Jumper world of horse shows.   You have the flashy, 'Hunters' who do their line, diagenal, diagenal, line in the perfect number of steps, knees folded perfectly, braided up the picture of what you wanted the Foxhunters of old to look like and then you have the Jumpers, who just have to have the heart to get over the big challenging courses and don't have to look pretty doing it.

It's the same thing.  Put a Hunter on a Jumper course and you have disaster, put a Jumper on a Hunter course and you have disaster. (Yes, speaking broad general terms here) and if you look at it, different breeds of horse excel in each specific style.

In our case, we have one breed of dog, slowly splitting into two specific styles.  Neither side can argue that their way is THE way anymore, it's just too different and I wonder when we'll end up with two seperate breeds.

"Let's be brutally honest, sure you might get 1% very handsome puppy that brings on the 'working' characteristics of the GSD but what do you do with the other 99% who are going to either be too 'ugly' to breed on in show or too 'soft' to be useful as a working dog?"

Dang. Good point.  
 

You do what every breeder does  - you place them in appropriate homes, to simply be pets (there is huge demand for German Shepherds because of their beauty and intelligence - the intelligence doesn't depend on looks and the average loving pet home loves the look of a GSD even if, or especially if, it looks like Rin Tin Tin.).

These dogs can go to pet homes, homes where people want to do obedience trials, or rally, or SAR...there ARE places for these dogs.  Every breeder of every breed deals with this issue.

If you are breeding show dog or working dog Golden Retrievers or Setters or Beagles or whatever, and looking for your next champion, you hope there's one stand-out in the litter - they're usually not all going to be superb.  You choose the best one, hopefully it's better in quality than its parents, and you place the others in appropriate homes.  There's nothing new about this.