What is a King Shepherd - Page 11

No thanks, had pizza for lunch at work : - }  Thanks for asking though........

Actually, lately I think showline GSDs are more distorted from the standard than working lines, which for the most part are just far too long and somewhat short of angles.  I do appreciate the rich pigmentation of many showlines, but I also like blacks, dark bi-colors and dark sables in the working lines.  For some reason there seem to be a significant number of working line black that are very nicely proportioned and constructed and quite attractive.  I think Silbersee just posted a photo of one if I remember correctly.  I don't care what folks breed, whetehr it is a gross aberration or not, but I don't like it when they promote these gross aberations as close to the standard when they are not and are gross aberrations.  I agree with the quote by Sunsilver for the most part. I don't know why both showline folks and profung folks can't work harder to breed to meet the standard.  Perhaps this would create less sidegait for the showline folks, and less points for the profung folks.  Maybe things have just gotten so overly competitive that folks have lost all common sense.  Perhaps winning has become everything and itself has caused seriously distorted, self-serving thinking.  I think this hypercompetitiveness has resulted in a serious loss of judgement about real quality in the breed, and less love for the individual dogs as pets.

Many of these gross aberations in structure, showline or profung can be quickly resolved by tracing a dogs outline on tissue paper or a transparency and then laying that tracing over a photo of  a GSD that is the standard.  It's actually a very simple thing to diagnose these aberations and distortions that way.  To me gross aberations in structure, movement or character in the GSD are disgusting.  I prefer mediocrity in all areas to gross aberrrations or distortions which are now so prevalent in zshowlines and profung (maybe worse now in showlines the last two years).

Sunsilver, a dog with "no croup" refers to a dog that does have an actual croup, but the croup is very short in length.  This is associated with smaller ligamentation and muscling in the rear that provides drive forward (propulsion) thus no smooth, powerful, ground covering gait, just a short-stepping, choppy gait.  Therefore old timers in the breed tend to refer to these dogs as having "no croup".

"Compared to my Schutzhund experience, the [American] show dogs were dumb. They were "Foo-Foo" dogs who could run pretty, but most of them didn't have a brain between their ears. The Schutzhund dogs were the heart of what a dog should be, but the "Foo-Foo" dogs were where the money was."

That's a quote from Tina Barber in her book, "The Shiloh Shepherd Story".  She goes on to say:

..the Shiloh Shepherd is a combinantion of the good qualities of both the show dog and the Schutzhund dog. The Shiloh is a pretty dog, but it's got to have the brains and the ability to be a good family protector as well as a good friend.

Later in the book she explains her philosophy regarding protection. Whether you agree or disagree is up to you, but personally I think it makes sense.  I could have had a nasty situation this summer if my dogs had been protection trained. A small boy was pointing and firing a toy gun at my big male GSD, and waving a toy sword over his head. The police officer who did the tracking seminars I took part in said that a police dog would not have been able to distinguish between a toy gun or sword and a real one. A schutzhund trained dog would have thought this was the helper waving the stick at it, and would have been looking for a sleeve to bite on.  Here's what Tina says:

Basically, I trained my personal protection dogs to be highly skilled BS artists. Instead of biting the guy because "I want to kill the sucker!" they were playing with him the way they would with a ball...My analogy was that putting one of these dogs on a 'fass' command was like pulling out a .357 Magnum water pistol. Very impressive, but 100% safe! They were not trained to kill anyone, they were just trained to put on a heck of a good act. That way, they would never hurt the mailman, the milkman, the gas and electric guy checking your meter, or the teenager who throws his ball into your yard. After all, the chances of somebody breaking into your house to kill you are much slimmer than somebody coming into your house or some other reason.  (Shiloh Shepherd Story, pg. 71)

In this litiginous society we live in, I'm sure you can see the advantage of the above. And yes, TIna DOES know how to train dogs that WILL bite. She titled 14 dogs in Schutzhund before she was 26 years old, and she and her first husband trained many dogs for security and police work. But your average joe doesn't know how to safely handle that sort of dog. You don't have to dig very deep to find stories of personal protection dogs accidentally attacking friends and family because some action set the dog off. (Yes, poor training on the part of the breeder/trainer providing the dog is to blame too!)

From what I've seen, for the most part, yes, though she is still working on it. It is still 'a breed in development.' Currently she has a litter that is what she calls non-new blood pups (NNB) on the ground, meaning the only non-GSD ancestor in their pedigree is Sabrina. Suprisingly, they do still look more like Shilohs than GSD's. (This is the only non-new blood line she still has.) The typical Shiloh, however, looks like the animal shown above in the 'Best in Show' picture.  Most are grey sable, and plush (long coat). The standard calls for ears that are smaller than the average GSD, and a straight back.  Some still look like their GSD ancestors,  smooth coated, and with either a saddleback or bicolour pigment. Pure black and pure white are also acceptable colours, with white being more common due to the influence of the Hoofprint dog, Orbit. Sabrina's sire was white, too (Baker's Snow.)

A number of things have interfered with her achieving her goals. One is that many breeders have broken away, and taken some of her best dogs with them, because they felt Tina was too strict/too hard to get along with. (Tina acts as breed warden, and has control of all matings, as certain lines just don't 'mix' well.) They have gone their own way with their breeding progam, outcrossing to GSD's again to bring in new blood. Tina is still working on expanding her gene pool, due to the loss of these dogs. She is thinking of doing another outcross, but keeps changing her mind about it. In the book she said 'yes', but more recently I think she changed that to 'no'.

Here's something that will give all the breed purists indigestion for a week. Look up Super Sweet Sabrina Selah in the AKC registry. Yup, she's there. As her breeder, Don Baker, said to Tina: "Paper don't refuse ink!" 

I wonder how many times something like this happened before dogs could be DNA'd to prove ancestry?

If you want to look at the breed standard, go here: http://www.shilohshepherds.info/issrShilohShepherdIllustratedBreedStandard.htm

To see how the dog has evolved over the last 3 decades, go here: http://www.shilohshepherds.info/pedigreeExamples.htm

Edit: that shoud have read: "Some still look MORE like their GSD ancestors..."

I can't let  the following untrue statement about schutzhund pass by without comment:

 "A small boy was pointing and firing a toy gun at my big male GSD, and waving a toy sword over his head. The police officer who did the tracking seminars I took part in said that a police dog would not have been able to distinguish between a toy gun or sword and a real one. A schutzhund trained dog would have thought this was the helper waving the stick at it, and would have been looking for a sleeve to bite on."  (Sunsilver)

This is possibly one of the funniest things I have ever read.   Dogs trained in schutzhund don't decide someone is a threat because of the "props" they are holding.    Actually a schutzhund trained dog probably wouldn't  see a small child as a threat even if he were hitting the dog over the head with the gun and poking him in the eye with the sword; however,  it's never a good idea to allow small children unsupervised play with dogs because they (small children) are unpredictable with regards to what they might do. 

What Tina writes on her webpages is essentially a sales pitch and an attempt to put her dogs in the best possible light despite their shortcomings.  Nothing wrong with that, I think most everyone trying to sell something does exactly that.  The difference is most of the people who frequent PDB are not the average pet buyer, have a working knowledge of schutzhund and can recognize BS when they see it.

"..the Shiloh Shepherd is a combinantion of the good qualities of both the show dog and the Schutzhund dog. The Shiloh is a pretty dog, but it's got to have the brains and the ability to be a good family protector as well as a good friend."

 The Shiloh looks nothing like a german line show dog.  They are way too big and fluffy for starters.  They are nothing like a working line dog either and wash out of schutzhund because of it.