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by vomeisenhaus on 31 January 2013 - 13:01
evolution by design works for me :) do you have any other webster dictionary references that we should be aware of ? lol
by vomeisenhaus on 31 January 2013 - 13:01
heres a definition i have. online experts who dont actively participate in true GSD work or sport. Blowhards.... lol
by Hundmutter on 31 January 2013 - 15:01
Oxford Concise Dictionary:
Evolution: Opening out, of buds etc; appearance [of events]
in due succession; origination of species by development
from earlier forms, not by special creation ...
Design: Mental plan, scheme of attack; purpose; end in view;
preliminary sketch [for picture, plan of building, machine etc];
Contrive, plan; purpose, intend [to do something] eg design
thing or person to be or do something.
["Argument from design" = deducing the existence of a God from
evidence of such adaptation in the universe.]
Blowhard: Boastful person.
Evolution: Opening out, of buds etc; appearance [of events]
in due succession; origination of species by development
from earlier forms, not by special creation ...
Design: Mental plan, scheme of attack; purpose; end in view;
preliminary sketch [for picture, plan of building, machine etc];
Contrive, plan; purpose, intend [to do something] eg design
thing or person to be or do something.
["Argument from design" = deducing the existence of a God from
evidence of such adaptation in the universe.]
Blowhard: Boastful person.
by gsdstudent on 02 February 2013 - 21:02
maybe too much time on my hands but, I am seeing a common thread in 6 recent threads about the GSD breed and direction it is going .Those threads are; [1] will the GSD ever be top police dog again. [2] Has dog training actually improved? [3] show-work mix a revival of the breed? [4] Why DDR/Czech ? [5] The evolution of the GSD.; In these 5 threads I see the request for direction and imput for breed improvement. What I see is the need to keep the GSD in the forefront of police K9 and other real world jobs. The breed standard maps out a working dog. Their are trials and shows to exemplify the best specimans for breeding, which should bring into the world many top service dogs. Is there a simple solution? Can just breeding show dogs to working dogs help for the far future? What about other countrys of the world helping the breed ? Can the answer to better breeding be in another country like Czech rep? I think all of these warrent study and research and are thought provocative, not fight inducing. Number 6 on the list of threads is; Goals for 2013 anyone? The answers given were all earnest but I would hope to motivate all here to get involved with a local training group, and a national GSD organization and work at the quest for a better GSD breed. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. Problem solver, goal for 2013
by Hundmutter on 02 February 2013 - 22:02
GSD Student, you are right, maybe the number of related threds at
the moment is especially high, but these are all questions or variations
of them that get asked regularly. On here and on other sites / magazines
etc. You could add the new one about Splitting the Breed in Two (working
and show, in America's case; in my country we have a different split suggested).
In replying to Eddy's OP, I wasn't being facetious - as some seem to think -
about the developments in our breed NOT being something that could be
described as 'evolutionary'.
The GSD breed has been its own worst enemy; because it has such
strengths and adaptibility, coupled with good looks that are superficially
easy to maintain, it has attracted more than its fair share of ppl who want
to alter or exploit it, and produce it in huge numbers.
Von Stephanitz asked us all to "Do one thing for me": to keep the Shaeferhund
a working breed. Now I know he saw the possibilities beyond sheepherding,
as a military / policing breed; and the scope for testing through SchH has been
with us all through; but I honestly don't think he meant it was okay to undermine
that, or to develop separated lines in the breed, reaching evermore for 'podium' dogs
whether that be as Sports dogs or Show dogs. Or in producing weird shapes,
coats, coat-lengths and temperaments for an expanding Pet market.
Something an awful lot of posters seem either unaware of, or don't think important,
is that the breed AS IT WAS FIRST DEVELOPED was that 'golden middle'.
the moment is especially high, but these are all questions or variations
of them that get asked regularly. On here and on other sites / magazines
etc. You could add the new one about Splitting the Breed in Two (working
and show, in America's case; in my country we have a different split suggested).
In replying to Eddy's OP, I wasn't being facetious - as some seem to think -
about the developments in our breed NOT being something that could be
described as 'evolutionary'.
The GSD breed has been its own worst enemy; because it has such
strengths and adaptibility, coupled with good looks that are superficially
easy to maintain, it has attracted more than its fair share of ppl who want
to alter or exploit it, and produce it in huge numbers.
Von Stephanitz asked us all to "Do one thing for me": to keep the Shaeferhund
a working breed. Now I know he saw the possibilities beyond sheepherding,
as a military / policing breed; and the scope for testing through SchH has been
with us all through; but I honestly don't think he meant it was okay to undermine
that, or to develop separated lines in the breed, reaching evermore for 'podium' dogs
whether that be as Sports dogs or Show dogs. Or in producing weird shapes,
coats, coat-lengths and temperaments for an expanding Pet market.
Something an awful lot of posters seem either unaware of, or don't think important,
is that the breed AS IT WAS FIRST DEVELOPED was that 'golden middle'.
by eddyelevation on 03 February 2013 - 00:02
excellent posy hundmutter.................the gberman shepherd must be a working dog .
i just don't know why such a big fuss for a dogs looks???
its like the dog hasnt really accomplished anything.............lol
its quite funny actually..........
i just don't know why such a big fuss for a dogs looks???
its like the dog hasnt really accomplished anything.............lol
its quite funny actually..........
by Gustav on 03 February 2013 - 12:02
Excellent post Hundmutter!
by gsdstudent on 03 February 2013 - 14:02
The ''Golden middle'' or maybe the '' golden Mean''. Avoiding extremes. I do not want an average breed. Niether did the breed's fore fathers. The problem with being in the middle is you are as close to the top as you are to the bottom. By breeding to top dogs you should raise the mean. Big problem ahead. What is the best dog[s]? Involvement in the total dog will help expose this top animal. Extremes will exsist. If involvement is not unilateral in the breed the extremes will dominate in meaningless endevors. Breeding the middle to the middle will not work as ''the golden middle'' is really only a catch phrase. Is absents of faults the best? Is a animal with many virtues and few faults the best? What about the animal who has strengths in the areas where the dog you intend to breed, is wanting? You must be involved with more than a pedigree, health certificate, and a show card to answer these questions. You must watch the breed on many fronts, examine prodgeny and take actions with knowledge of your destiny. Your destiny? I trust it is, the betterment of the breed.
by Gustav on 03 February 2013 - 16:02
Our definitions of golden middle definitely are different...dogs like Marko, Held, Mutz, anf Bernd, represent the golden middle....nice in structure, nice in work, nice in progeny of work and show , and not extreme in any one phase....some of us still breed for that as our standard.
by Hundmutter on 03 February 2013 - 18:02
My definition of the 'golden middle' is more like Gustav's, than
merely 'average'.
IMO The breed, post say 1910s, needed a bit of 'type' condensing, and structural
improvement. [This is because the variety of sorts of dog brought together at the
end of the previous century, to form the breed, had begun to more or less 'breed true',
so it was time for some tidying up, towards more specimens being correct to the
details set in the Standard, including working capabilities.] So: They got the
dippy backs / wither 'nicks', and curly coats and soft ears, out of the way,
on virtually all the German, and 'germanic', dogs by the 1980s. What happened
since then (pls note: NOT talking detours on looks or temperaments etc here, re
the AKC S/L or UK Alsatian 'sideshows' - I'll get back to those),
was that the croup got further curved, the hind assembly got lengthened,
the Show 'Stance' became more refined, allowing handlers to use it to
accentuate those developments, and in the worse examples the back
became 'hinged'. While there are degrees of this, many dogs (for which
read Breeders & Judges) have gone too far. They have allowed the backline
to become a little exagerated, which then looks even more so when the dog
is posed. They have allowed laxity and failing to penalise underdeveloped metatarsals
in the Ring to result in puppies with woefully awful 'hocky' hind movement that can
persist long after those 'puppies' should have tightened up. That was compounded
by some crazy notions about not letting young dogs exercise enough. If a dog
cannot stand up properly, it cannot support a correct topline, whether in stance or
in movement ; and so for instance it has proven productive to allow the dogs to drag
their handlers around in Showring or progeny parades, instead of trotting forward
on a loose leash, pulling into their collars and (sometimes) managing to disguise
deficiencies in their toplines and side-gait. Unfortunately the World doesn't see the
worst of these cases - because most people just see dogs en masse in vids of things
like Sieger shows - or the piss-poor dogs don't make it even to minor shows, because
some owners have the common sense to realise their dogs are not worth exhibiting.
[Unfortunately not everyone IS that sensible; and the 'Go on, take it to a Show, see how
it does' crowd don't help !]
And then of course you have people who scream that the slightest upward curve is a
'sickening roach'. (They aren't right, either, LOL.)
The Working Lines dogs, wherever their origins (whether DDR, Czech, or the more
function-conscious kennels in then West Germany, or anywhere else, like the lines
that spred thru' Belgium & Holland etc) escaped some of the 'refinements'. Some-
times that led to really ugly constructions with 'bums higher than shoulders', but
mostly it just results in a non-exagerated dog - particularly as compared with the
extreme flat 'ski slope' backline on ASL dogs - with slightly less angulation, closer
to those quality earlier dogs from once the GSD was well established, say loosely '30s
through '90s. (Although if you really study enough photographs you'll see a LOT of
variation, still.)
Of course many people in the Show scene ALL OVER THE WORLD have not wanted
to 'see' this as it is, in their pursuit of prize cards and Champions / Victors etc titles or
V gradings.
But a lot of sports and working folk can be equally blind when looking at the structural
condition of their dogs, or those they want to breed with. Unfortunately people on both
'sides' cherry-pick from, or totally overlook, the Standard.
It has probably done nearly as much 'damage' to the GSD breed, as a whole, to concentrate
on various drives, aggression, grip, etc as individual factors to be improved through breeding.
No doubt the working and sports and personal protection people will all argue with me on
this; but I do not believe 'prey monsters' that e.g. can't be used with livestock were what
Max was looking forward to; any more than he would have wanted the examples of craven
cowardice we have seen at times in Show rings - with especial reference to ASL and Alsatians !
Then for people to be saying - as they frequently do - " I want a dog I can do (SchH or PP or whatever)
with enough courage and drive to win / get the bad guys / bite harder than average, BUT I also want
it to be a 'family dog' and not to need constant exercise / training / attention ... but I CAN'T FIND ONE
ANYWHERE (pup or adult) " surely flies completely in the face of the passages relevant to Temperament
in the (first) Standard, let alone any 'shrink to fit' later versions ?
And I haven't even got onto the adjustments which should be made to breeding programmes to ensure
better health in the breed, in the light of current evidence about conditions and diseases ...
merely 'average'.
IMO The breed, post say 1910s, needed a bit of 'type' condensing, and structural
improvement. [This is because the variety of sorts of dog brought together at the
end of the previous century, to form the breed, had begun to more or less 'breed true',
so it was time for some tidying up, towards more specimens being correct to the
details set in the Standard, including working capabilities.] So: They got the
dippy backs / wither 'nicks', and curly coats and soft ears, out of the way,
on virtually all the German, and 'germanic', dogs by the 1980s. What happened
since then (pls note: NOT talking detours on looks or temperaments etc here, re
the AKC S/L or UK Alsatian 'sideshows' - I'll get back to those),
was that the croup got further curved, the hind assembly got lengthened,
the Show 'Stance' became more refined, allowing handlers to use it to
accentuate those developments, and in the worse examples the back
became 'hinged'. While there are degrees of this, many dogs (for which
read Breeders & Judges) have gone too far. They have allowed the backline
to become a little exagerated, which then looks even more so when the dog
is posed. They have allowed laxity and failing to penalise underdeveloped metatarsals
in the Ring to result in puppies with woefully awful 'hocky' hind movement that can
persist long after those 'puppies' should have tightened up. That was compounded
by some crazy notions about not letting young dogs exercise enough. If a dog
cannot stand up properly, it cannot support a correct topline, whether in stance or
in movement ; and so for instance it has proven productive to allow the dogs to drag
their handlers around in Showring or progeny parades, instead of trotting forward
on a loose leash, pulling into their collars and (sometimes) managing to disguise
deficiencies in their toplines and side-gait. Unfortunately the World doesn't see the
worst of these cases - because most people just see dogs en masse in vids of things
like Sieger shows - or the piss-poor dogs don't make it even to minor shows, because
some owners have the common sense to realise their dogs are not worth exhibiting.
[Unfortunately not everyone IS that sensible; and the 'Go on, take it to a Show, see how
it does' crowd don't help !]
And then of course you have people who scream that the slightest upward curve is a
'sickening roach'. (They aren't right, either, LOL.)
The Working Lines dogs, wherever their origins (whether DDR, Czech, or the more
function-conscious kennels in then West Germany, or anywhere else, like the lines
that spred thru' Belgium & Holland etc) escaped some of the 'refinements'. Some-
times that led to really ugly constructions with 'bums higher than shoulders', but
mostly it just results in a non-exagerated dog - particularly as compared with the
extreme flat 'ski slope' backline on ASL dogs - with slightly less angulation, closer
to those quality earlier dogs from once the GSD was well established, say loosely '30s
through '90s. (Although if you really study enough photographs you'll see a LOT of
variation, still.)
Of course many people in the Show scene ALL OVER THE WORLD have not wanted
to 'see' this as it is, in their pursuit of prize cards and Champions / Victors etc titles or
V gradings.
But a lot of sports and working folk can be equally blind when looking at the structural
condition of their dogs, or those they want to breed with. Unfortunately people on both
'sides' cherry-pick from, or totally overlook, the Standard.
It has probably done nearly as much 'damage' to the GSD breed, as a whole, to concentrate
on various drives, aggression, grip, etc as individual factors to be improved through breeding.
No doubt the working and sports and personal protection people will all argue with me on
this; but I do not believe 'prey monsters' that e.g. can't be used with livestock were what
Max was looking forward to; any more than he would have wanted the examples of craven
cowardice we have seen at times in Show rings - with especial reference to ASL and Alsatians !
Then for people to be saying - as they frequently do - " I want a dog I can do (SchH or PP or whatever)
with enough courage and drive to win / get the bad guys / bite harder than average, BUT I also want
it to be a 'family dog' and not to need constant exercise / training / attention ... but I CAN'T FIND ONE
ANYWHERE (pup or adult) " surely flies completely in the face of the passages relevant to Temperament
in the (first) Standard, let alone any 'shrink to fit' later versions ?
And I haven't even got onto the adjustments which should be made to breeding programmes to ensure
better health in the breed, in the light of current evidence about conditions and diseases ...
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