what did Max mean? - Page 4

John, nice pic. Very boxy conformation, nice red pigment! LOL

Clews, very cute post. Your black shepherd is beautiful. Saw him/her on a different thread.

Thank you 4pack - I am partial to him but I also see lots of other great looking dogs throughout these posts.  Learning lots about what a great gsd is and hopefully will get our guy in the field soon - of course our girl won't stand for being left out.  They both have awesome potential in the hands of the right trainer/handler which I will concede to someone else as I am just learning. 

My Chloe would eat the sheep too I think ....

Rittmeister Max von Stephanitz was a very versatile man. When he saw that sheep herding is not the only thing our GSDs could do, he focused his attention to military and police dogs. Schutzhund later was invented as part of a temperament testing. People made a sport out of it, just like some do agility, flyball, weight-pulling etc. I have confidence that Rittmeister Max von Stephanitz would be flexible enough to find more responsibilities if he was alive today. As an example: Seeing-eye dogs, search and rescue dogs, assistance dogs (therapy), explosive dogs, drug detection dogs, avalanche dogs, customs dogs. All these responsiblities have one thing in common. There is no bitework involved and the temperament has to be calm and steady. So, there is plenty of room for diversities. To each their own!

All these quotes what the Rittmeister supposedly said are always in English. Please keep in mind that he did not speak any English. Somebody translated it. Some food for thought!

I have to see if I can find my 100 year anniversary special issue from the SV somewhere. There were interviews in there with the Rittmeister's daughter Herta. She talked about her father's goals. Did you guys know that she was always a special SV member?

Chris

"They both have awesome potential in the hands of the right trainer/handler which I will concede to someone else as I am just learning"

We both seem to be in the same boat then.

Quote : There is no bitework involved and the temperament has to be calm and steady. So, there is plenty of room for diversities. To each their own!

The problem with what you are saying is that there is a small implication that dogs that do bitework do not have correct temperaments. This is wrong. PLUS, I question you as to what type of dogs you work, because calm and steady suck to work with, and I have not seen a GSD seeing eye dog since I was a kid. They are all labs now, as the GSD's rep is in the garbage. Working a calm and steady S&R dog would not get you where you needed to be in time to save anyone. Many more examples but I think you get the point.

Also, none of the dang pics are up there that I can see. Is it my shit that is not working right????

Jeff Oehlsen,

I have no idea who you are and what kind of dogs I have. Maybe, you can elaborate? Your statement about the small implication that dogs that do bitework do not have the correct temperament is absolute nonsense. I have listed responsiblities for our dogs which did not exist during the Rittmeister's time. Kudos to he who can read, lol!

But if you question my dogs and me: Just check them out here on the PDB, they are all registered here. I can say that I have never ever bred a litter out of untitled dogs. 99% of the time, they were all breed-surveyed as well. The reason I did not state 100% is that twice, the females were not breed surveyed at the time the litters were born. One was breed surveyed later, and the other earlier, but for health reasons the first survey had expired. Up to now, I have bred showlines and will certainly continue to do so. A couple of them work/have worked as police dogs: Cora vom Silbersee (as a drug detection dog), Jaeger vom Silbersee (a lot of people know him, he received a few awards) and Jaeger's son Yago vom Silbersee, all showlines. My next litter (Iam currently expecting) is a workingline litter out of V-rated dogs, as correct conformation is very important to me. I am a fan of the universal idea. My husband (who is a federal LEO and used to create the K9-program for his force years ago) and I started out with SARDOM (Search and Rescue Dogs of Maryland), which is affiliated with ARDA. As a matter of fact, we were part of it as founding members in 1990. It did not contain bitework and calm and steady dogs were required.

Chris

For sure no matter what the purpose, Max would still insist on good dogs that can do the job...not mediocre dogs that people pretend can do the job. Remember, this is the guy who ran into the show ring firing a gun saying "get your gunshy dogs out of here!".

I wonder what would happen today ,if someone did that at an AKC or an International SV trial.????? I vote to send Jeff to do the job.

Quote:  Up to now, I have bred showlines and will certainly continue to do so.

I knew it !  ! ! !!  LOL

S&R is a mess, and the different orginizations have different things required for cert. So, that is a mess I won't get into with anyone. I just know that there are people with all kinds of fancy schmancy certs.

Anyway, I hope that you have nice dogs and can get over the showlines thing. They really are not much to be around compared to the working lines. Plus, working lines are so much better looking.

I really do not get the showline people, their dogs are just BUTT ugly I swear I would rather have a turtle or iguana than one of those ugly things. LOL

Jeff,

Your quote:

"and I have not seen a GSD seeing eye dog since I was a kid."

Just wondering, how many blind people do you see? Also, how many "blind people" can't see a what a beautiful dog looks like?

For your perusal,

http://www.fidelco.org/

hugs and 's

~Deb