Showlines and Workinglines are Genetically Different - Interesting Study - Page 11

Unless the Kennel Clubs try to mess us about, that is ! - the UK one told
us to stop inter-varietal matings between the 4 Belgians; [ I think it has
subsequently reversed that decision now ? Or in part ?]


A lot of people in GSDs would be intolerant of mixing say WGSL
and ASL - at present only ' Alsatian s' get bred with ASLs in the
UK.  There is already much criticism of putting 'English / Alsatian'
bitches to decent Germanic dogs, and then keeping only the long
low puppies, casting out any too 'international / German' in appearance
and structure.  But they have to, because their own gene pool of males
is small.  The arguments in favour of splitting into 2 breeds (rather
than varieties) in the UK - ie Alsatians and The Rest - have wrecked
on the shores of the total separation, no inter-breeding of breeds
(or would-be Varieties ?) argument.

Sometimes that happens when breed fanciers & breeders stay so separate the registry club will turn the varieties into separate breeds like the Jack Rusell Terrier & Parson Jack Rusell Terrier have done with AKC.

I don't ever see that kind of division happening here in the USA though since a large amount of ASL breeders are breeding their dogs to European SL / WL'S now. You still see enough breeders pairing SL & WL'S together. Each group like a certain type of GSD, so that may not ever change nor their goals for their favorite type, so the variety class separation within the breed would be a great way to resolve ALOT of conflict.

Almost all the Spaniel / Setter breeds are completely different in looks, drives, & temperament from their field to show versions. They are hardly ever mixed either, but remain within the same breed because enough people now the difference between the 2 varieties from the hunters to the show man. 

cpHudson -wish I could always tell one spaniel breed from the next, LOL.!

Am ok on Setters, and am generally reasonably educated about the whole
range of breeds - but have always had problems with Spaniels and (some)
Terrier breeds.  Whether Show or Working lines.

While I don't entirely disagree with you on a Varieties split to GSDs, I just
believe it could get helluver complicated if we did ...

I also don't really see the point in the AKC variety class because the WSL & WL will not compete within the AKC confirmation in large enough #'s to make it worth while. Those lines will continue competing within the SV system. But would rather see something of a variety classification division instead of creating separate breeds of German Shepherds. 

If the breed were to separate into different breeds we'll have to create the 4 new breeds for; UK Showlines, American SL's, European SL's & Working Line GSDs. That just seems extreme to separate the breed that much.

Very interesting topic.

Male showline (Yoshyi vom Haus Dexel) X female workingline (Jay-la v/h Volgerland).

Outcome fenotypical





                                                                         



 

I have the view that the subject of "Epigenetics" needs to be considered as a major reason for the differences in Show and Working lines.

The environmental considerations, notably the training and tasks instilled (or not) into the GSDs', "turns on" and "turns off", certain "markers" facilitating show and working line attributes and subsequently change the specific genetic features in their progeny. All one has to do is just look at the GSDs' since 1895 to readily recognise that change has occurred. The question is why, if "genetics do not change? They clearly are influenced and do change for reasons other that the respective DNA composition.

It is called selective breeding, where you pick only the progeny who phenotypically exhibits certain physical characteristics.  And then continue to do that across all of the available litters, until you set a "type" around those physical attributes.  Over time, you will lose the other attributes that were present in the "original" dogs, and you move more and more into the hole, with a narrower genetic pool being operated in.   A dozen generations later, there is little to no genetic similarity between this line and the others around.

i can only speak of belgian schepperds i don't know much of GSD lines but the changes in both breeds are very simular, showlines are loosing working abillity's and workinglines often don't meet breedstandard anymore.
in the past it was considderd a sign of good breeding when out of 2 tervurens a groendaal could come or vise versa, same for malinois you had a tervuren out or a mali in a ltter of lakenois.
a world reknown boxerbreeder told me that if you never have white boxers in your litters you didn't breed good boxers even if white is not a color that was dissired it still was a sign of genetical good breeding.
biggest problem is the lakenois, for this varity the genepool is so small it can't wait another day, a belgian genetical expert even made the statement last month that in every 4th generation a mali schould be introduced in the bloodlines,sadly most lakenois breeders are using showline mali's so they miss out on the chance of restoring the working ability's of their beloved breed because let's be honest we are talking about shepperds here, and it doesn't matter if it's a belgian,dutch or german shepperd if they are scared/nervous next to cows or sheep they are no longer schepperds!!!
i have seen a showlinechampion(GSD) who triald in ipo and stopt tracking because he was scared of cows in the field next to the tracking field and yes that same dog was used by several breeders as a stud the dog is now titled ipoIII by a working judge so not everything is to blame on showlines, judges need to be more serious about what they are beiing paid te do!!!
in belgium we have some judges who these day's in shows are excluding nervous/scared dogs out of their showring even championdogs (in wonder why they aren't judging more often)
but that's for me not the biggest problem these day's health is
i have seen pictures in diffrent clubs here in belgium of GSD,mali,tervuren lakenois and even bouviers from 1900-1950 who competed in old belgium ring trials and took 2,5-3,5m high jumps
if a dog has health issues that's not possible but were are the dogs who have these quallity's ??? i know only a few mali's these day's you can teach this i hope there still more than i can think of, because otherwise we have a big problem.
so not all loss off working abillyties is to blame on showlinebreeders? workinglinebreeders let slip some quallity's to.
it's true breedstandards are rewritten every somany years but so are workingtrialrules.
so instead of blaming workinglines or showlines mabey we all schould be breedenthousiasts and togheter put pressure on breedorganisations to set really hard standards on a dog before he is allowed in breeding
hips,elbows,spine,heart,eyes all tested and clear, return to original breedstandards and make a true natural quallity's test
unhealthy,nervous,scared dogs could be excluded from breeding .
retrieving a dumbell i dont consider a test of quallity's for schepperds, normal behavior next to scheep/cows and deffending their owner i do
hunting dog's should retrieve not schepperds, guard dogs should deffend at all times when there told
shy,scared,nervous or general unhealthy dog's schould be excluded at all times only then in my opinion we can go back to the healthy,usable dogs that lived in the past and so many of us still dream about mabe some changes in standards and trials benefited our breeds but untill we go back to what diffrent creators of diffrent breeds had in mind some 100years ago we don't know. what we do know is that they had stronger dog's and a lot less health problems
this is just my opinion nobody has to agree but if you even for one moment thought about it and considerd something i reached my goal


 

yo bubbabooboo, stay on the topic. dis ain't bout bros on da hardwood, yah i mean.

What it's called is crap science, no publication, and no peer review.  If they wanted to look for genetic differences between working dogs and show dogs they should have tested them for working ability and rated them for KoerKlasse under equivalent rearing and training conditions.  They did not!!  Maybe the "show" dogs were better at protection or schutzhund than the "working dogs" in some cases.  Perhaps the "working dogs" were more lovely to behold and met the breed standard better than some show dogs. They made a bunch of assumptions and as we know in science assumptions have made asses of many researchers.  The test would require that each dog be raised under equal conditions and trained in the same way followed by testing of the dogs working ability and last but not least a KoerKlasse rating.  The entire test is one big confounded mess with people classing dogs based on nothing but pedigree.  If the SV starts stamping "working" and "show" on pedigrees let me know.