Does color affect temperament? - Page 2

Of course, I don't take anything to heart anyways. But I appreciate to hear what people who have had a lot of experience with this breed have to say. instead of the "loopy" people that come into my office spouting off about things Google has told them and tall tales that have been passed around the watering hole.

Believe me, you can find more than one "looper" who have experience with the breed!
Lol

People only offer what they know and are their experience...And of course it depends on where you're at and what group of people you're with...

I have seen dogs (German Shepherds) of ALL colors with all types of temperament...

It used to be that AKC didn't register White GSD's as a separate breed...and in fact as I grew up was told that they "culled" White GSD's...

~Bob~

It sounds like someone was just over-generalizing between American dogs, GSL, and GWL.

Color doesn't "affect" temperament, but there can be correlations in certain bloodlines among certain colors. Any long-time breeder can likely give you examples of colors that "tend" to be more one way or another based on their experience in a particular line (not impossible, if you understand how genes are bundled) but there is absolutely nothing concrete about it.

Breeders that breed white GSDs use both AKC white GSDs and GSDs of various colors. The breeders that now or in the past that only bred white dogs are those that breed only White Shepherds today. The White Shepherd gene pool is much smaller but they do go back to GSDs of various colors in the distant past.

Now as far as temperament and color goes each breeder has what they will accept or not accept. The temperament of GSDs of any color it is their genetic makeup of past and present that will determine the various degrees of temperament. There are dogs with shy aggression, no fear protective aggression, unstable temperament afraid of most everything and those no fear of anything not the norm today. Due to general public negative opinions about the GSDs temperament today USA breeders tend to breed a mellow dog that can be handled by anyone. There are still those GSD breeders in the USA that breed for what a GSD was intended to be by the founder Max able to accomplish any task and still have sound temperament. Not everyone can handle a hard or fearful dog reason it is so important for a breeder to find the right owner for that pup.

And then, of course, there are a lot of 'breeders' on both sides of the Pond who do not have a clue what they are doing, and are not breeding 'for' anything in particular, with regard to temperament or anything else. "Pot Luck", anyone ?

Every puppy in a litter has a different temperament.
Working line breeders typically keep, train and use the best dogs for work for breeding with little regard for conformation.
Show line breeders typically keep, train and use the best dogs for conformation that can still complete the work requirements.
White GSD breeders typically do not train, title or show their dogs.

When I had a club, as many working line dogs as show lines dogs flunked out. Some tended to be lazy, some too high strung and nervous. Much of the time the owner's inexperience was to blame. Many wanted to bring an older puppy to club that was taught to be calm or overly active, and with no obedience, tracking imprinting and no tug work.

It's possible to find a low drive sable or black, it's possible to find a high drive show line.

A prospective buyer must know how to read and raise a puppy for its intended use.

SitasMom - believe much in generalities ???

But - in general - the GSD breed is meant to have a certain temperament, it is supposed to be recognisable from the description in its Breed Standard. So its no surprise when individual dogs have similar characteristics, on the whole, whichever colour it is. Sita'smom is right, up to a point, to generalise. Of course there are variations, a little more of this, a little less of that, within litters. It is down to people breeding for dogs to produce more stock for one purpose or another (sports, conformation, etc) that have given us the degree of distinction between one member of the breed and the next. And that has happened to include coat colours as I described ^^^; the majority of pups in a sable Working litter bred from several generations of W/L dogs is more likely to be bought for, kept & trained for, and pass muster as, dogs to do sports or Services work, than the majority of puppies in a Showline litter, likely to be Black & Red, bred for several generations on Black & Red showdogs. Which will most likely end up as Showdogs (or breeding stock; or 'inactive' pets). Does not mean that a S/L dog absolutely does not have the temperament for work/sport, many do very well. But not all. And of those that do, many do not excel at it. Whereas it is increasingly rare, especially it seems in America rather than Europe, for a W/L bred dog to excel in conformation classes. ALL GSD ought to be able to be both conformationally AND temperamentally correct. (The question of who interprets the Standard most closely these days is a whole other can of worms !) Its down to peoples' interference with the original 'blueprint' that they are often not, and that the breakdown largely includes colour difference as a sort of by-product.

There is a big difference in a dog with good conformation and dogs that do well in conformation classes. I have seen countless WL dogs with excellent conformation that won't do well in conformation classes......is it because of color??? There are opinions on this and facts on this.......