They are all the same breed - Page 8

GoldenElk,

in my opinion, a breed never ceases to develop. That is why experienced breeders prefer to take their females to younger stud males. I have talked to a few in Germany, they all said that. For me as a small hobby breeder, that is not feasible. Since I only have a few females and it costs a lot of time and money to fly over to Germany, I prefer to be on the safe side and pick a male with a proven record, instead of the latest fad or prospect.

As to uniformity: Yes, the showlines are very uniform nowadays due to the Martin era. Just look at these cookie-cutter black and red dogs. Is that a good thing? Not in my opinion because our standard calls for more colours. That is why I breed with sable showlines. How many do this? I only know of a very few here and in Germany. Peter Messler tried to get more diversity but since he left the trend is back to the black and reds only. Most people get discouraged because a lot of times you won't get the placements the dog would deserve. They like to rest on their achievements, which I think is a pity. We (as the GSD community) have reached that goal of uniformity in the black and red showlines, now we should move on to more challenges which would include more colour diversity, better temperament (hardness) in some lines and more anatomy in others. But these "free-spirited breeders" (for a lack of a better definition) over here will never achieve that because they do not like restrictions and want to breed for their own fads (whatever they may be). That is why only the SV will be able to maintain our breed.

Allaboutdawgs,

I love the idea of "mixing" lines. I have always said that. But this has to be done by the big breeders, not people like us. I only breed about 3 litters a year and would never get the results other do. "Mixing" lines requires thinking in generations, not just one breeding. I would never ever entertain the idea of outcrossing to other breeds, and neither do serious breeders in Germany. That is why Raiser got into hot water, not only with showline people but a lot of workingline people as well. We do not need other breeds to improve our lines. There is enough genetic diversity. I have peeked into other breeds (not thoroughly, but a bit) like the Dobie, the Rottie and the Boxer . You would be shocked! They can only dream of the genetic diversity we have.

Chris

Chris, thank you for that post, and cudos to you for breeding against commercial driven trends. As long as there are breeders who trully care about the "whole" shepherd, there will be hope for the GSD. I also respect that you can place ego aside and admit that other breeders would probbablly be more fit than yourself to take on the matter of mixing lines.

Like you, I also agree, there is enough diversity amongst the different types of shepherds to not need to introduce a seperate breed, I only throw out the breeds I mentioned as a "what if" scenerio.

Sorry I missed this thread when started!  I have not nearly read the thread; just skimmed some replies.

"There is NOT a great deal of difference between the American and German standard. It is all in the way the dogs are being judged. If the judges all judged ACCORDING TO THE STANDARD, I think we'd have much better, sounder dogs.  And BOTH standards call for a STRAIGHT back!"

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

This neophyte who is really not much more than a spectator never thought the standards were either that different from each other, nor have they actually changed much in 50 years at least!

But, the dogs HAVE!  How does that happen?  Just goes to show, writing it down on paper for all to see doesn't eliminate the "see no evil, speak no evil" approach.  Powerful popular people these days simply ignore what is written and pretend and convince others they are "following the standard"; unspoken is that they have changed what they think should be the standard.  Then they can tell us the standard is still OK - it IS, but the judging AND the participants (breeders, owners) seem to have chosen what they think is "good" unspoken, and create their cliques that control what REALLY happens, as opposed to what is supposed to.  (We have this problem with the Constitution, too.)

I fear this may have happened with Germans, too.

Great thread!

Gustav, you knew Ken Rayner?  I see he just got recognition for belonging to the GSDCA for 25 years (surprised only that!).

He - or specifically, his wife - bred my most-beloved-dog-ever Shana.  What a jewel she was.  We had talked to Ken many times at shows up until that time, and he told us about his wife's breeding of a Benji (Ken's big all-breed) son to her leased German dog.  So when they were ready we saw the pups and the rest is history.  Best dog I think ever existed.  She was half and half bloodlines, so to speak.

In fact, they were so good, that when a week or so later I found my baby having a seizure and took her to the vet, we called the Rayners.  Ken offered immediately to take her back and trade or refund, whatever.  We kept her; there was a dead wasp next to Shana's head  when seizing so I seriously think she stung herself in the mouth playing with it.  She never had seizure problems, outside that instance at 9-10 wks.

in my opinion, a breed never ceases to develop. That is why experienced breeders prefer to take their females to younger stud males. I have talked to a few in Germany, they all said that.

Not trying to pick on Silbersee personally here. Please note, she says 'they all said that,' meaning the German breeders she talked to.

My feeling is this is the reason behind the banana backs and extreme angulation we see in the show ring these days. In the minds of those breeding this type of dog, it's an improvement. In my mind, that's a very debatable point.

Yet, you can see this in nearly every breed. Even in commercial livestock, the poultry, swine and milk cows of today look very different from those of the early 1900's  And look at the thread about "Opening the Studbook" where there are pictures of how the Morgan horse has been changed by infusions of new blood. We're never happy with what we've got, we always have to keep tinkering with it, trying to make it better.

Should a breed remain forever 'fixed' in type, as has been suggested in this thread? Should we still be using the appearance of the dog/dogs the writer of the breed standard had in mind as the 'ideal' dog,  as OUR ideal when breeding?

And if we decide no, that's no longer the picture of  the ideal GSD, should we not then (gasp!) REWRITE THE STANDARD??

I hope I'm making sense here. I'm struggling to find the right words to express this in an easy to understand way.

I think for G. Dodge you mean here GIRALDA Farms, not "Griselda".  ;-D

"My feeling is this is the reason behind the banana backs and extreme angulation we see in the show ring these days. In the minds of those breeding this type of dog, it's an improvement. In my mind, that's a very debatable point."

I agree with you 100% there.

"Should a breed remain forever 'fixed' in type, as has been suggested in this thread? Should we still be using the appearance of the dog/dogs the writer of the breed standard had in mind as the 'ideal' dog,  as OUR ideal when breeding?"

"And if we decide no, that's no longer the picture of  the ideal GSD, should we not then (gasp!) REWRITE THE STANDARD??"

This is what's funny.  I can see changing the type a little.  But the drastic changes with apparently no reasoning - makes no sense.  Surely the dog originally created was more than satisfactory?  Maybe some tweaks.  But I would think the standard would basically stay the same, somewhat general, and 1 would stay within that framework.

E.g., whoever decided roach-backs were GOOD for trotting, I cannot understand.  It goes against general dog principles.  Yet basically the standard wasn't changed (from what I know).  If someone were to follow standards, the dogs pooh-poohed today by the cliques on either side of the pond would still pass!  But it's as said above - it seems judges (i.e., the powers that be in the dog worlds) decided what they like, which has become the unwritten/unspoken standard.

Sunsilver, you honestly need to get off this thing with the banana back, lol. I have said that many times. Not too many dogs have these perceived backs. It is a matter of stacking. I know that you like the straight" American back", but please look at Linda Shaw's website and see the illustrations. These American bred dogs have extremely high withers due to steep upper arms and extreme rear angulations. In addition, the croups are steep and short, not what the standard calls for.

Yes, a breed constantly needs to be improved. You only think about appearance. I am thinking about temperament, color diversity and most importantly health. If the breeders of the 50s and 60s would have thought the same thing, we would have a lot more HD in addition to haemophilia, unwanted colors (see the liver and blue thread) etc. A couple of years ago, the SV wsa worried about the lack of black markings on the forehead. They fixed it! On the health sector, they added the requirement of the elbow screenings. I heard (can't verify that) that there is a health study going on on the inheritance factor of CES and other back problems etc. Currently, the SV is giving guidance on improving size (most dogs are on the size limit), among a few other things. I believe Reinhardt Meier mentioned all this in his speech back in May. There will be more about directions in the breed next month in the SV magazine in the 2007 BSZS report.

Chris

Silbersee, when you say 'improving size', do you mean decreasing it, and disqualifying oversized dogs, which judges have been turning a blind eye to for quite some time now?

I'd just like to clarify that I am not a big fan of the American GSD, or at least most of what we're currently seeing in the show ring. Like a number of other people on this site, my ideal GSD would resemble the dogs of the 50's and 60's. However, I do think the current American dogs look better than the more extreme German show line dogs. I also like the look of a nice working line dog, though I don't see the point of breeding a dog that's got such extreme drive you can only keep it in a kennel, because it's going to trash your house, or bite your kids.  (NO, I am NOT saying all working lines are like that! )

I'm a neophyte, but the backs are NOT just a matter of stacking.  I've seen plenty live dogs where you can tell immediately (even my basically wonderful conformation dog now has a hint of it perceptible in any natural stand or walk, etc) "just doing their things".  You can't tell me the stacking fad is so different from the '50s that they all just are forced to look that way artificially.  (I agree stacking/handling can make things more than what they are, but it's just not quite the "cause" of it all here.)

As for us talking about "only appearance" - oh no.  Appearance is the gateway to conformation and hence, performance.  E.g., ideally, if we took a ton of dogs and judged who performed best, a good deal of that would be a function of conformation/appearance - and we might take him and say "he is the ideal 'appearance'".  A few of these things are merely cosmetic, but many are not.  In fact, I'd say the trifling differences are "cosmetic", but not the difference between a roach-back and a too-flat back and a sway-back.  Neither is the different between over-long legs (American - it's not simply angulation) and proper length legs, or drastic pastern angles, etc.