What is a King Shepherd - Page 9

Actually I think I may have a burger king shepherd... He's always leaving me whoppers

LOL - that's about the best thing I have heard this whole thread!

Trafalgar - I thought that was well thought out :)

Yes all dogs can track, they are born utilizing their noses more than any other sense, we don't teach them how to track.  If ever you would be interested in learning what tracking and/or schutzhund is really about, I'm sure most people on this board would be happy to help you out. 

Sue, go take your condescention somewhere else. I've got more experience in tracking than in any other area of dog sports. My first GSD couldn't track her way out of a wet paper bag. Yes not typical of the breed. My next one passed CKC Level 1 and 2 tracking courses with flying colours. Too bad I didn't know about the ILP then, or I would have taken her in competition.

Now, you say 'all dogs know how to track.'  Answer me this: does this dog look like it has a CLUE about tracking? HELL, NO! It's a POINTER. It probably smells its owner's scent (she was at the end of the track) and he's POINTING at her!

What a large percentage of working line GSD enthusiasts don't get about showline GSD owner/enthusiasts is that the showline folks are chasing an image of beauty and perfection of form.  Unless you are into this one cannot understand it.   For a classic car collector to try and explain the  motivation and meaning of acquiring, rebuilding an older classic car like a gull winged Mercedes or a Duesenberg to a person that doesn't appreciate these cars is almost useless.  These classic car enthusiasts (most of the time) do not restore these cars and keep them near pristine for profit.  It's just that they love the experience of owning them, driving them and looking at them.  Owners of top winning, top moving, near perfect to the standard showline GSDs actually love to see their GSDs move in the ring, or just standing or moving around their home or kennel.  It is poetry in motion and achieving the perfect art form to them.  Like an art lover buying and enjoying owning and looking at a rare painting  from one of the masters of the middle ages. Some cat enthusiasts feel this way about their expensive, rare breed house cats.

I have seen GSDs in the ring that were absolutely "poetry in motion" like a beautiful well oiled machine, that could gait all day long, smooth and powerful.  Perfect in proportions, structure, great pigment, coat, absolutely stunningly attarctive GSDs.  At the Sieger show or large SV shows one can see many of them.  Most working line folks are fixed on the form of the GSDs performance for work tasks, not conformation (only some are), which is secondary to them.  But this is what the showline breeders are all about, conformation and beauty of type, and poetry in motion.  Many working line kennels are concerned with conformation only as a secondary consideration, just as many showline kennels are concerned about working hardness as a secondary and necessary consideration to satisfy the minimum SV requirements for temperament and trainability. There are exceptions to both, and Kirshental Kennels has been one notable example.  This kennel has always marched to its own beat, concerned very much with working ability and also very much with conformation.  Proof that it can be done.  But both sides equally accept the same FCI/SV standard even though they emphasize different breed traits.  That is okay and makes the GSD SV based dog sport very interesting and diversified.  I am always impressed when I see a V rated working line GSD that is very attractive, true to the standard and moves like a well oiled machine.  And I am also always impressed when I see a Top winning attractive showline GSD that has impecable working ability.

I am also always impressed when I see a Top winning attractive showline GSD that has impecable working ability

 

When have we seen this Preston? At the BSP, at the WUSV? The point is as always that the GSD be a working dog first. This Shiloh/King shepherd is surely not one. The showline shepherd so popular is not really a working dog first either. I mean honestly people, the BSP and WUSV are there to plainly represent the "breed test" for the German Shepherd and you just don't see the hot selling showlines in the championships.

Courage

Oh yeah

The truth is, the working line is the German Shepherd.  The rest of the variants are just posers in nice suits.

Harddawg, there is a great deal of controversy about working line dogs too.  I have seen many showline GSDs that are near perfect in temperament.  If their owners chose to concentrate on Sch trials only, some of these dogs would do very well.  To me personally, a fair number of working line GSDs are so far from the FCI/SV standard and have such grossly exaggerated physical traits that they do not look like GSDs at all.  Long string beans, no angles at either ends, no croups or steep in the croups, genetic aberations in many cases.  And some are so hyper as to not able to make good family pets as Capt. Von Stephanitz required.  Some are prey obsessed with no reasoning ability, and often made worse by being stuck in the kebnnel instead of the home where they belong.  A GSD with proper temperament is docile around his master and family and their other pets and farmyard animals, according to Von Stephanitz's book.  I have always believed that a GSD should like like the standard specifies, should act like the standard specifies, and should move like the standard specifies.

Some breeders in the zuchschau game go too far with attempts to win the "sidegait game" and end up with sickle hocks.  Some breeders in the profung game go too far and end up with prey driven aberations that don't look, move or act like the standard specified.  Both are creating diversions from what a good GSD should be and are what I consider aberrations.

"A GSD with proper temperament is docile around his master and family and their other pets and farmyard animals, according to Von Stephanitz's book."

My working line GSD's are docile at home but  devils on the field. I think it would be erroneous to say that the working line dog is a devil in the home. It's all in how you raise them.