Anomaly outside of widely held belief about Defense Drive - Page 15

I had a Marko vom Cellerland son and grandson in late seventies. Same type of dog as you described above. Incredible discernment qualities and also tremendous natural herding instinct. The dog was human, around normal situations a joy to be with, at night, or abnormal actions by unfamiliar folks, you could see the dog processing situation to determine how he would respond.

Who is bringing back these kind of dogs Joan? Is it you?

Thank you again Gustav. From what you describe I now better appreciate the idea of discernment in a dog; in my example the dog continually adjusted his demeanor based on what I was doing ( of course he never got to the point of having to "do anything " other than adjust his facial expression and body position ). I don't know how I knew that permission had to be given for someone to leave the enclosed space..( is that part of a herding instinct? ).
Someone asked about my own dog. I got her at 12 weeks old, and right from the start we was very open and welcoming to strangers. By 16 weeks she began to become ambivalent ( she would go sometimes and other times she would bark at them ), though she never had a bad experience.. As time went by she shifted to the bark overtly /aggressive side, and presently( at age 11 months ) she will not allow anyone ( other than a family member - wife or daughter ) to enter our personal space ( in any environment --home or any place away from home ). She has a medium prey drive and a high defense, and she is also environmentally stable ( accepts all surfaces, loud noises, rumbling sub way, nyc traffic, and highly stimulating sights ). I am hoping that discernment kicks in with age.

I had a dog born in 1995, that matched the dog in your description. He was and is the yard stick for all the dogs I've had since that dog.
I've given permission to a couple guys to deer hunt here this season. So this morning I was expecting them to come to the house and I let my 2 yr old female, Spree, out in the fenced front yard and porch. This was to give her an opportunity to alert, if she will, when strangers arrive...not many visitors here in the hinterland, lol. Shortly after letting her out, she gave a series of very strong warning barks. I looked out the window, and the two guys approached the front gate, and stopped. She stopped barking except when they moved again towards the gate..causing them to again stop. Then when she was quiet, one guy touched the gate to unlatch it...Spree jumped up and down, a change in her bark that indicated she meant business. I stepped out the door at that point as she put her front feet on the fence rail on the porch and lifted her hind feet preparing to launch over the fence. I called her to me,but before I could get a leash on her, the guys opened the front gate and Spree broke from me with a bellowing bark charging the porch fence again. I called and told they guys to get behind the front gate till I got the leash on her. Done. They entered, walking past Spree and I , she was totally focused on them. The first guy who dared open the gate looked at Spree, she lunged at him barking, and the guy looked away, the the second guy came past, he looked at her and spoke to her, she lunged at him. I praised her and when she was calm, but still watching them, I brought her into the house and crated her. That was the reaction I expected from her, all natural without any more than one session with a decoy in her life. BTW, she is neutral to people in town, and when she is introduced to friends, she is neutral...Cliff may remember meeting her, l brought her out of the kennel leashed, to meet him. She is a Body/Chekta daughter.
Another member from this board met her, but I didn't take her out of the kennel and she didn't greet them warmly, lol. Spree is typical of my dogs.
Being territorial and alerting at strangers is supposed to be a primary function of gsd, being sound nerved, clearheaded, and excellent with their family with small children and bidable are traits they need.

Mithuna, herding instinct is responsible for gsd behaving in the manner of not allowing any movement without permission. My gsd want every one to be in a group, when walking the trails here. Any one of my dogs will go back and forth make a wide circle around us, until we are close together then they go along. Same thing when in two different farm vehicles, any of the dogs will go to the vehicle lagging behind and move behind it as tho wearing a flock to move them along.
I want to add to my above post, that I was praising Spree for barking, taking advantage of the situation to reinforce her alerting on strangers. When friends come to the house, I can introduce her and her aggression is put on hold.

Please add more Joan , its a lovely narrative.
what happened to the dog born in 1995? Any progeny around?

I know this is GSD thread but I was recently offered this 16 month old Hunter Nassau  ( KNPV Mal ) son for 3500. Hunter's son Big Roy won the 2013 KVPV championship.  I met him in real life , he definitely caught my eye.For such a young Mal he is quite muscled. I asked the owner why he was being sold; the owner says" hes not crazy enough for me". This is what had led me to the original convo in this post with a Mal breeder

 

The dog born in '95 lived to the ripe old age of 12 1/2. He traveled with me on the road and kept guard of my horses and rig while I performed in the arena. He was my scout in the middle of the nite when I played big cities like Philly, Omaha, OkC. looking for water source for my dogs and horses. I wasn't breeding  dogs in those days, I was on the road all the time.
Here at home, he would hunt squirrels, tree them, and retrieve them after I shot them. I didn't have to train him to do it, he just did.

Btw, he was heavily line bred on Quando and Canto.

if you guys are having trouble finding the dogs you want then you are looking in the wrong places. breeders breed to demand so if you are seeing a lot of the same type of dog then it is becuase that is what is selling. there is enough extremes of variation in the breed to get whatever you want from pretty boy pets to special forces dogs, stop generalising as if the breed is just one trend, clearly illiogical.

as long as every second rank breeder breeds the latest dog with the highest points on the IPO field then DUH you are going to get a dog via selective breeding to be more suited for competition in the modern context.

it is certainly a dilemma, people want famous peds so breeders breed famous peds to famous peds and lets face it the best way to get a ped famous is to have dogs on the sport podium.

as far as IPO dog not being bothered by strangers there is also a nurture factor - a dog saturated with exposure to hundreds of dogs, spectators, handlers in different locations and is forced.to frikkin behave itself it is just going lose suspicion nless it is an unstable dog.

same dog bought up as a one family dog with a different training picture would be a different dog, aggressive dogs at trials are a PITA. i ran my dog thru some agility trials it's a lot of work having a territorial dog, seen the same thing at IPO to a lesser degree.

 

this is not rocket science.