provide some examples of any endurance based animal (dog or not) that is shaped like a gsd. - Page 18

Blitzen, while those chemicals are used as described, what is not included in your list, is iodine crystals and cocain on the bottoms of hoofs (even done to weight pulling horses and ponies.) Another method, and most common and also outlawed, is putting heavy chains around the pastern, so the they bang with each step., causing the horse to lift the foot immediately. All this pain in the fore feet is to cause the hind legs to be placed well under the body, in order to take the weight off the forehand, therefore lifting the forequarters. Another way that pain is created to cause the hind feet to be placed far forward, is grinding the wall of the hind hoofs to the point where they are so thin, they can't support the horse's weight without causing tremendous pain.
Look at the lifted hoof of the walking horse Blitzen posted. See how deformed it looks? That's the other method of getting the leg to be swung forward. The pads and weights on the bottom of the foot, which inevitably causes ring bone, navicular disease and founder. All in the name of show points.

There are literally hundreds of photos right here of GSD's with a hackney gait used to promote kennels and sell  dogs and puppies. I  suppose the owners think it's correct, it's not. In the dog world we usually call those dogs pounders or padders.



I've been told it's mainly due to the dogs being 'strung up' by a tight leash. Here's a photo that proves it's NOT solely due to the leash:

nice example Sunsilver / Blitzen
holding a dog up by the collar will do it, as will training for focus attention with the head looking strait up at you!
I've seen so many obedience/work dogs with this gait when heeling (No Matter the breed)  

 

few treads back somebody asked if shepperds would use long coated dogs or high metabolism dogs for breeding, well i know from mali, tervuren,groendaal, lakenois history that in the beginning shepperds didn't mind about how the dog's looked they only cared about the performance of their dog's
it was not untill the first dogshow the breed got split up in 4 diffrent "hairstyles" and colours were disired and other colours not (brindle) later becomming the dutch shepperd.
​high metabolism dogs probebly weren't used sinds dogs got their food and that's it, high metabolism dogs probebly wouldn't have had enough food, so not enough energy to perform their task as well as other dog's they owned so for them not disireble for breeding
those day's are long gone and dog's lifestyles are totally diffrent these days few dog's need to perform on a daily base and the tasks they do are totally diffrent than back then
police, military dogs but even SAR dogs task are totally difrent than herding from 05.00-till darkness and than sleeping whit one eye open to fight of wolves etc...so i'm convinced they were harder, and had a diffrent type of stamina of our dog's today and whithout good health they wouldn't have been kept alive for a long time dog's weren't pets they were a working tool as today nobody drives a broken car to work
they could probably outtrot every modern dog but searching 3-4hours to find some hidden narcotics or explosive???, those trades were brought in after they started breeding for policework (also a belgium's first)
so selective breeding comes whit the time dog's live in, in the past herding/ppd few years later policework wich evolved to ringsport/highjumpcompetions etc... these day's it appears to be more about breedstandards than performance/health
maby this is the way the world evolves but i fear it's not the way we all should be evolving
if a dog lost all original trademarks: so  for shepperd dogs, stamina and the guts to really fight of intruders/protect their owner or his livestock even if they got hurt the previous time can we still speak about the same breed, just because he looks like what has been written and rewritten countless times on a piece of paper often to suite the breeding of those who write the paper?
it's like a labrador/golden/chesapeake/flat coated RETRIEVER who lost all drive to retrieve something and yes you can find them in almost every showring these day's
think about it, retrievers who have no retrieving drives  i think it's funny every time i think about it, but actually i feel bad because in shepperddogs both GSD and belgium shepperds same thing is happening it's just not so obvious as in retrievers whitout retrievieng drives i wonder if those breeders ever thought about it in this way


 

Kyto, having owned a GSD with a long, SOFT coat, I seriously doubt that they would have been favored by shepherds. They would collect burrs, form ice balls on their feet when it was cold and wet.  Dogs with those types of coats soak up water like sponges and take a very long time to dry making them subject to hot spots.  Shepherds didn't carry tack boxes to groom their dogs, they would have wanted a low maintenance coat. For these reasons I felt it was not good when the SV opened classes for longcoats. Now if you're talking a GSD with a long coat and harsh guardhairs, then that would probably be a dog that could do OK. It's more about the texture than the length.

As far as metabolism is concerned, I agree with you 100%. Shepherds would not have wanted a dog that needed to eat a lot of food.

Wish this video was longer and had more animal examples filmed in it.

Sure it a dog is strung up it will not reach out as well as it will if moved out on a loose lead. That is one cause of padding/pounding. Judges are generally savy to that so ask that the dog is moved on a loose lead and allowed to extend his head so that the back line and the neck are almost level. The min pin standard warns against doing that in order for the dog to exhibit the correct gait. IMO most GSD's (all lines) that pound/pad do it because they have a short upper arm, and/or cannot fully open their shoulder joint. The dog I posted is not opening it's shoulder joint and it is pounding. His feet are not moving close to the ground, he is "lifting" in show terms.  Very incorrect and not an efficient gait for a working breed. Still I see photos like this one all the time. Why?

I would like to see the  video of Dingo done with a skeletal overlay.

There are equine vets at New Bolton Center in PA who can diagnose certain disorders in small and large animals just by watch them walk at various speeds. The GSD in the video is pacing because he is moving slowly. It looks as if he's getting ready to break into a trot.