Panda Shepherd(what do you think?) - Page 22

@Penny - again you have picked on 'fault' - just because the breed 'standard' says it is not an accepted colour - so what? there is absolutely no inference as to the health concerns on this matter so no credibility can be attributed to this. I believe you may be referring to breeding practices and possibly mean that if you breed for colour then you foresake health. This though, if indeed is what your are implying, has no correlation to colour in itself. If an animal is bred from a healthy stock then because a pup happens to be a different colour you are assuming that it will throw up other problems - as far as I know there is NO factual evidence relating to this in GSDs. This just seems an excuse to perpetuate certain views and to try to win over others by making people believe that "if you don't breed 'standard' colour GSDs you could end up with problems" - it is scaremongering, nothing else.

Really now - what difference does it make if we end up with GSDs of all colours - what is the big deal? Going on about a 'fault' which is PURELY a cosmetic issue and has absolutely no relevance to the health, temperament or workability of a GSD is pointless. If people what to show dogs that have 'standard' colours then fine, but please note that it is not for individuals to say what can and cannot be bred. If people are really concerned about the wellbeing and development of the GSD then they would not be placing such importance on a minor thing such as colour. The standard has changed over the years - colours have become accepted in some areas and no doubt there will be further changes in the future. Again, I say it is all down to a clique of people trying to tell others what they can and cannot do. If a breeder is responsible and health conscious and, if they happen to breed from liver, blue, white, panda, black with white spots, whatever, so what.........? 


There is NO proof that colour in itself is linked to health issues so please do not imply that is it. The 'fault' you speak about is that you cannot enter it in some show just for the purposes of winning some rosette. I do not believe that the GSD was actually bred for the purposes of just being shown, but for temperament and workability. No proof has been provided that colour makes a difference to these traits. If the animal is a GSD through and through then colour is part of that make-up. If you want to improve the breed then do not selectively breed out GSDs purely on a basis of colour - do it for valid reasons, not just because it is a 'fault' for show purposes, unless of course people actually deem an improvement of a breed to be to wipe out all incarnations purely due to non standard colouring........ That would be sad, really sad.

i was just wondering, wouldnt the cause of colour mutation due to colour crossing? like when you breed a white shepherd to a black and tan shepherd? but they sure look like pure gsd's to me.

I think Penny has done everything right. She personally see's certain colours as faults (she has the right to go by a standard look) but she didnt bring harm to any of her pups she found them ideal homes with responsable owners. I dont think she is saying "YOU CANNOT BREED FROM THESE COLOURS" i think she is saying she doesnt want to be personally conected to these colours in the breeding world. She is clearly trying to be a responsable breeder that has very strong oppinions about colour and meeting in the middle is all she can do.

There are breeders out there who will breed for certain colours and i personally think some of them forget the importance of health checks cause they have a demand for "Liver" or whatever colour puppies. I think i have personally been feeding that demand by openly saying i would like to own a Liver dog in the future but i wouldnt buy from a breeder who fails to answear my questions about health etc... (as of yet i need to find a responsable breeder of "looks" but i am 100% sure one is out there)

I think if more responsable breeders were open to breeding from certain colours then there would be no room for the failing breeders to manipulate owners into buying from their potentially unhealthy stock on the idea the colours they breed for is "rare"

These debates will be going long after we have all left this earth and the new breeders and owners will be trying to convince one another that a certain colour/coat length has a right to be bred from.

Dex says...  There is NO proof that colour in itself is linked to health issues so

Persoanlly, I think there is but I am not sure, so I think we should all that are in interested, try to research and find out.  That would solve it, and if ther isnt any proof that there are health changes brought about by specific colour breeding, then we can be more relaxed about it - but if there is, then we should walk the other way.

Re Georgiegavino thread above

Yes, exactly  -  I can tell you of a breeder that sells their whites and blues as  "Rare - Saught After - Not to be Missed"   and I agree with him that this is a bad practice, lulling the public into thinking that we all cant get these in our litters and when we do they are something special..... this is where indiscriminate breeding goes - must be good, its rare, and people want them.  Then we start slipping from the breed standard, and the next one is that the dog is overshot, perhaps and should be because its rare and has a different mouth so it cant bite????   -  sounds far fetched and ludicrous, but hey, all of these little things can make money to the crafty greedy pig breeders......    If there is only one in the litter with a mouth fault, it can be called rare !!!    Be Careful of deviation - its not usually for the right reason.    Mo.  

@Penny - it appears that you are again using supposition and scare tactics - 'this will lead to that and so on'. You may well know of breeders that sell GSDs calming they are rare and therefore special - a bit like breeders saying 'all our GSDs conform to the standard and come from lines containing champions' isn't it? The only argument you seem to have is that 'before you know it standards will be brought down' and this is all because of a colour is it??? How about this premise - breed whatever colours you want as long as health is adhered to, then you have less rarity and you cannot use that as a basis for any claim that a 'colour' causes a problem. Interesting to note that even you mention about having to GSDs born with a brown colouring - were they deformed then, less valued than the rest of the litter? Whatever genes they had could also have been in the other littermates could they not (with regards health). If it is such an issue with you and you are concerned with health (as breeders are not recommended to breed from any GSDs that have health issues) why did you breed from their parents - surely they were carrying 'bad' genes? This may sound extreme and silly but if you claim that 'colour' may cause health issues then you should be taking this stance and not breeding from anything that may throw out a non-standard colour GSD (a bit like not breeding from any GSD that may throw out bad hips).

With regards to greedy 'pig' breeders, why do you believe everyone that breeds something different from the 'standard' is greedy - take a look at ads for 'standard' GSDs ones from 'champion' or 'working stock' lines - are you telling me they are much cheaper and any more moral than other breeders?

How about this - let all colours be recognised - that would get away from any argument you have on indescriminate breeding wouldn't it. Another thing - please try to stop associating anything to do with colour in relation to health. Yes, there are known issues of colour in SOME breeds, but until you can come up with factual evidence regarding all non 'standard' colours in GSDs then you really have nothing but hearsay to go on and to try and use scaremongering to weigh up your reasoning for not accepting non-standard colours is a weak attempt at gaining points.

"Very nice girl Incavale, but highly *doubt* she is a "Panda"... You should do DNA testing to find out what she really is. The Panda Shepherds are an isolated bloodline stemming from only 1 dog, who was born to black/red and solid black parents. She was DNA tested to determine parentage, and also DNA researched & mapped at UC Davis under Dr. Neff. (Luckily) the Panda gene is dominant (with 1 panda parent 50% of the offspring should also have Panda markings) so no inbreeding is necessary to produce the color. I would recommend sending your dog's DNA to UC Davis... I would say most likely is the Irish spotting gene which is quite common, or slight chance of "piebald" as well... Would be interesting (to me) to know for sure what kind of gene is causing her white. :o) If somehow it was the same Panda gene determined by UC Davis - that would be extremely interesting to know it "mutated" and popped up in 2 separate German lines from traditionally colored parents."
 

I don't want to address anything else in this particular discussion, but wanted to state that yes, it is very possible for the mutation to reoccur in a separate unrelated line.

Dex,
You need to get over your excitement.   I am not in any way so adamant as to lose sleep or worry about non standard colours, and if you had read my post carefully you would have known that to start you post off with it appears that you are again using supposition and scare tactics.  I state clearly that I dont know, and it would be good to find out !  That isnt scare tactics.   It is more scary that you can state that there are no other anomalies going on without documenting the proof of your thoughts.

However, you are interested in my breeding process.  Let me tel you how I dealt with the issue of having two little brown babies in there.   I had a great litter - enjoyed every minute of them, but will NEVER breed again from the mum her name is Mascani Yasmin - so you can look that one up for future information with the KC and make sure that I wont breed from her again.  She was 3 years old and it was her first litter.   She is a beautiful girl with a low hip score, black and gold and of excellent  temperament.   In the litter there was one short coat female that I really liked.   I was very tempted to keep her, as was my plan, but didnt due to the fact that the gene is there once she has brown litter-mates...... she she went to a pet home too, like the rest of the litter, and is coming to our training school, and knocks my eye out every time I see her.

I am sure it is fussy of me, and perhaps most would say I am daft for taking such drastic steps, but its my choice, and I was happy taking that choice.  I know I was right because when I look at this female puppy in class, my one side says -= "wow she is lovely, and would possibly do well to show" - and the other side of me says "then I may want to breed from her and have to wait to see if I get odd colours".  -  therefore my 100% was not there - so I shouldnt have kept her.

As for asking why I bred from her, and was it not in the genes, yes it obviously was, but I didnt know until Teddy and Bear arrived (my choice of names which the new owners have stuck too as they looked like fabulous bear cubs)  Therefore, I had a responsibility to make up my mind whether I would chance it again, and came to the answer being No.   There are too many dogs out there needing homes, why breed if you cant standardise, and be fussy about what you breed.   It was probably the most difficult decision I have had to make regarding keeping a puppy, as I had such a quality litter sister, that I really wanted to keep, but it would have whittled at me for my future breeding programme, and I didnt need that.  Just my opinion.  I also still stand with my opinion Dex that one cant be too fussy aboiut how they do things - and I really do believe that deviations lead to more deviation, and before you know it, you have a different animal.  Tell me, dont we have three Belgian Shepherds now registering?  Whats that about for standardisation and the general public whjen they want to buy - they even have differing names.   Mo.

mo,i think yu will find that there are 4 variatives of Belgian shepherds.....malinois,lakenois,groendales and teurverans.not sure if spellings right.Carole S.

@Penny – because I am questioning your opinions does not mean I am getting exited. In you posts you have said that you cannot call a GSD that has the colour as displayed on this thread as being a GSD and that if it looks like that it is cross-bred. You have no knowledge whether that is true or not and are merely casting doubt because the colour does not tie in with what you would want or expect. In the distant past GSDs where of varying colours and breeders chose to breed out certain colours, which is exactly what you propose now. You base your statements in a way that it would be a bad thing to have non-standard colour GSDs. If there was evidence of the colours outside the ‘standard’ having health issues then I would agree with you, but I do not believe the evidence is there. If you believe I am getting ‘excited’ then please explain to me why exactly a pup that is of a non-standard colour being thrown amongst a litter of ‘standard’ is not worthy of being bred from? You have no base on the health front apart from stating things like the ‘whole issue does not end in colour’. As far as this discussion goes it does. The scare tactics I am referring to are when you allude that if we let non-standard colours be bred who knows where we will end up, obviously meaning that we will have less healthy dogs. Providing breeders are responsible and take health as the primary concern please explain to me why more health issues would be created? With responsible breeding the only position we may end up with is more GSDs with varying colours – do you not agree?

If it is your opinion and want to only breed from standard colours then fine, but what is annoying is when it is inferred that to go outside the realm means problems could occur. That argument is purely as a means to try and control what others do and what should be accepted. Whites are now more accepted, I guess in the past there were advocates saying they should never have been bred from either. Changes take place, it is only natural, but providing they are in the best interests of the breed for health, temperament and workability, then who really cares what colour a GSD is? Why are you so bogged down with that thought? I’m not; I’d accept a healthy, all-rounded, GSD for breeding whatever colour it may be.

Hi Dex,

You still sound excited

Right.  I`m off this now to find out if there is any credible reasoning beyond my thoughts.  I will post on this thread as soon as I have talked to people with lots of education, research, and examples of this.   Perhaps you are right, perhaps I have gotten my mind bogged down to black and gold or sable, emulating from my show back ground with my dogs - but we do need to know for certain if its possible, because your basis of   "its ok"  is not backed up with firm proof either.  I still dont care to name them as Panda Shepherds.

Lets both not get excited for a day or two and I will try to find out.

Mo.