GSD's in the U.S today. vs the past - Page 1

What's the census? Is the quality of working GSD's available in the U.S. better or worst today than that 20+ years ago (before 1988)? Please explain.

Was there as much imported blood then as there is today and was there any east german/ddr lines available in the United States back then? How easy or hard was it to obtain a dog with the right nerves and drives for working venues in days past versus today?

i would say we are much better shape of having quality working dogs in this country than the late eighties,i had Urs back around 1990 and he was a working dog out of germany that shows in many great working lines even today,but that said it seems more of his famous working dogs that came out of him down the road came out of west german kennels and he I think was bred to higher quality females before he left germany,the germans had a great head start and seem to stick with it year after year while too many good american breeders jump in and out,it can take years and years to devellop great working blood.

Hi, I think better just for the much more readily available vast selection of working pedigrees right here in the USA now.

My first working line GSD was imported for me by a good friend that was a retired police officer in Germany back in the early 80's. She was an amazing dog & great worker. But it was difficult finding suitable studs / importing back then. She was hard as nails, a bomb could go off in the room & she wouldn't flitch. She always was eager for trouble to find her so she could take it on.
I loved her & the few other dogs I imported back then . But they were not as eager to please as many WL of today, also they were not as socialy accepting of stranger, etc..

It was much more difficult to find quality selection of WL for breeding in the USA & if you didn't know the right people harder to import also.
While I loved the temperament & drives of those dogs, many might find them a increased liability in todays society though.
The dogs back then were not prey monsters as many of today's dogs are, but they still had enough to get the job done. Mine back then had tons of drive.

I didn't like the bad press the breed got back then, the high # of GSD's having to get PTS / shelters because of bites. Most weren't the dogs fault UI guys walking onto the property, etc.
But most of those types of WL GSD's had a harder time fitting into our socieety with increasing insurance laws, public views, etc..  

Today's WL dog's are easier to train, more openly social by comparison, & smaller in over all size.  So depends on what you prefer in temperament & drives to say if they are better now-?

I love the breed from back then & now. I'll cheerish the dogs I had back then as I do with the dogs I have now.

hudson, how big do you remember the dogs being back then?

It seem in general most dogs were about 10lbs+ larger than todays WL GSD. It was more common to have 75lb females & males around 90lbs all working weight. While you still see that today,
it's more common to see the average weights of females around 65lbs & males between 75-85lbs. DDR dogs were larger than they are now also. I've seen DDR males over 100lbs back then. 

I like the size reduction though, it's with in the standard & the dogs can work into advance age longer without breaking down like some of the over size GSD.
The first WL GSD I did SAR work with for 7 years was a very large female about 85-90lbs working weight. I had to retire her at 8 years old, she just had too much arthritis / wear & tear on her joints.
Most dogs slightly smaller could easily work in SAR until 10+ years old. But for family / property protection the intimidation factor of a large impressive GSD can go a long way to make any criminal change
their mind just by looking at them. But then again I have more people afraid of my 65lb black sable GSD that is a sweet heart than my more civil black & tan colored dogs, just because of the color.

I have trouble trying to think of anyone that didn't have an import that they were using as a stud. I think that with the internet, we have a lot more opportunities to view more dogs. That would have been pretty handy back then.

I think the dogs back then were more independant thinkers back then. More confidance overall, but with the training that is used today, maybe that is why I see that. We didn't use food, or opporant conditioning. The conflict caused while the dog was learning was channeled into the bite work. Now, the dogs are learning without compulsion. 

It would be nice to travel back in time and grab a pup and see how it turned out with the way that we train today.

I also wish that I had known about artificial insemination back then. I would have kept several males for future use for sure. I wonder how many breeders are doing this today ? I know Kadi Thingvall is, but she is breeding Mals. 

I should probably re-phrase that, I knew about AI but I didn't know that it could be stored for extended periods of time.

interesting post from everyone. I did not have gsd's back then but I had the mindset that through the internet and accessiblity that there would have been a census that there are better dogs available today in the U. S. then yester years.

Do you all believe that the extensive competion in sport has hand the effect of less civil dogs in just the U.S. or worldwide?

I do think sport has something to do with the change, but so society had a greater role to play. World wide the GSD working jobs shifted for mainly a aggressive type of police / military dog to a more super high drive social dog.
Dogs today need to be safe in the general public & not a liability. I do think certain lines are still pretty civil as the dogs in the past.
Almost all dogs imported for police / SAR / seeing eye work are out of schutzhund / ZVV dogs, so todays schutzhund dogs must be doing something right.

Sport has nothing to do with it. I am not sure how this idea that because I/you/we raise a dog to do "sport" he is somehow less of a dog. We got better at training dogs. A LOT better. The terrible trainers of today are still pretty good compared to the terrible trainers of back then. WAY more information available on how to work a dog.

ALmost everyone accepts the idea that the dog must learn how to do the exercise first THEN you use compulsion. This is a pretty big jump from back then. I don't see learned helplessness anymore. Granted I am not everywhere, but that sure helps a dog who would not be able to deal with learning the compulsion type training.

Jeff I don't think training a dog in sport makes less of a dog, but I do believe a person can be successful in sport with a dog that lacks civil drives. Therefore if a large population of GSD owners no longer are focussed on more than just prey drives, you end up with dogs that may lack in other drives. But this is only in theory on my part because I have not owned gsd's for that long.

From my limiting readings and research it does seem training has evolved since days of old. I remember it was regular practice to teach a dog to sit by hitting a dog on the butt with the newspaper.