First pick in the litter cost $10,000 US dollars - Page 8

 Sounds like a little terror. What I have found (this works for me) I,d rather have to cap drive then to  build it. Does Ace want a pet or a working dog? sounds just like some obedience needs put in to place. 
 

You don't know Ace by now? LOL Well, I'm pretty sure he's a Schutzhund guy all the way, he's the one with the pup who won't stop barking in his crate... 

echo, you ask a good question and was pretty much my way of thinking going into the German dogs. Sch. title = real GSD. It did not take much exposure at all to realize this is a myth. A sch. title is absolutely no indication that a dog can work, or even that the dog is good for sport. And being good for sport is also not a 100% indicator that the dog is good for work.

I am geared more towards s/l, because that is something I have a little experience in. But I am also a believer in that a dog will perform better at the tasks he is bred to perform. The sticking point comes in that many s/l breeders breed with the heavy emphasis on guess what, doing well in shows. As naive as I am on some of this, I can figure out pretty quick that a dog bred to show, which first requires beauty and gait is seldom going to top at sport the dog bred to excel at sport. Or the dog bred for LE or military.

There are always the exceptions to the rule, the s/l breeder who does put emphasis on good character, the nervy w/l from generations of w/l that runs from the gun shots.

Back on topic, the test of a s/l is how well it does in shows. I have seen young dogs/pups from the kennel the OP asked about. I have yet to see one do really well in show or even one I would care to own at any price. I would think there would be one occasionally just due to the number produced, but a $10,000 price for a puppy is geared toward suckers and very novice.

jmo,

Rik

Echo, let me give you a quick history of the German dogs. Until the early '80s, there was no split between working line and show line in the German dogs. Then, several kennels began to breed beautiful black and red dogs with a slight arch to their backs. The idea was that the arched back was stronger, like the arch of a bridge. There is not one shred of scientific evidence to prove this, but due to the politics of the SV, these dogs became extremely popular, and every one began breeding to them. Soon, if your dog did not look like this, you could forget about getting a top placing in the Sieger show. Thus began the split into working line and show line GSDs.

The show line kennels became focused mainly on appearance, and making the dog show nicely in the ring, and working ability began to slip. Other breeders continued to focus mainly on working ability, and the split became more and more entrenched. Here's an article that will help you understand. Koos Hassing of Tiekerhook Kennels in the Netherlands is one of the best known breeders of working line dogs.

http://www.prlog.org/10507451-word-from-mr-koos-hassing-tiekerhook-german-shepherd-kennel-holland-part-one.pdf 

I would almost sell you a top US young male for 10,000

I really appreciate the background and help in trying to understand this. This bring up so many questions for me though. Everyone talks about "proving" your dogs before you breed them (which of coarse you should do) and titles are usually the way to do this correct? Well if SchH titles don't mean anything as far as workability then how do you prove a dog has the ability to work? And by work are we talking about real working situations police/search/rescue/herding or are we talking about service/seeing eye? In my mind they both are working dogs however these types of things don't carry titles on pedigrees right? Would love help sorting this out.

echo, as I said, I think you ask some good questions and think this topic deserves it's own thread rather than trending towards thread drift from the OP.

there are many folks here who work dogs for real that could share insight.

best,
Rik