reversed mask - Page 3

Duke, PM me the ped of upcoming litter, if you don't mind. 

I'm in the middle of similar decision and I can sympathize with the comments. I am going to breed my oldest breeding bitch to one of two littermates. I'm deliberating long and hard because this could be her last litter. Both dogs have excellent qualities but I'm strongly leaning toward the "unpopular" one as the match. The popular one has his "i's dotted and his "t's" crossed, is a super popular color, drop dead gorgeous, and a very nice dog. Truly, nothing "wrong" with him; he is a GREAT dog...just the fact the unpopular one, to me, is an incredible dog...the kind you only get once in a while. The unpopular one is black, so all pups would be black, and his eyes are a tad light (amber ,not yellow or anything crazy). I was a bit surprised by the remarks I got when I mentioned I might choose the black....."but then they'll all be black" (yes, how observant of you), "I wanted a bicolor or sable" (life is not fair), and my favorite, "Don't you risk whites?" (Uh, no comment).

I don't find your chosen stud ugly, or his brother. Ugly to me is weakness of body or even color. Those dogs do not lack in either. Swayed back, excessively loose ligaments, giant ears on skinny Collie faces, washed out colors...poor expression due to nerviness...those are ugly traits to me. 

Ibrahim, I disagree; there are dogs with zero mask at all whose face is the same color as the body. I think reverse mask is far more accurate. The mask pattern is there; it's just the opposite coloration. 

I think the dogs pictured in both of your posts, duke, are beautiful, and personally I don't have any objection to a reverse mask, or for that matter to an otherwise well-pigmented dog with no mask.

Maybe it's because I used to have Siberian and Alaskan Huskies, so seeing different types of masks and markings don't seem strange to my eye.  More likely, though, is that I'm a child of the 60's....so I grew up watching the TV show 'The Littlest Hobo', and between that show and the GSDs I saw as a kid which ran the gamut of masks, GSDs with the reverse mask are equally acceptable to me.

To be honest, I had more difficulty to warming up to the solid blacks, primarily because the solid field of color on the face makes it harder to read their expression...and on the dog's body, it makes structural faults stick out like a sore thumb. But in the long run, I still stick with a variation on the equine adage, "a good horse is never a bad color".

nice looking dog.

 

i have always wondered about loose lip folds, whatever you call it. the dog appears to me to have loose bottom lip folds, my dog is exactly the same, they seem to get dry easy.

 

on that thread jack what about loose top lips, does the standard or breeders consider this, i have never seen it discussed on the forums.

 

longer top lips = dog fanging itself

 

loose bottom lips that roll out  = mout and lips drying out

 

what am i even talking about?

 

 

The reverse mask goes back....waaaaay back!

You might recognize the man in this photo. If the dog's owner didn't date the photo to WWII, the dog could easily pass for one of the Hobo dogs. 

One of my favourite GSDs from the past had a reverse mask. He was an excellent working dog, lived a long, healthy life, and is know as a sire of good working dogs:

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=5427-lord-vom-gleisdreieck

The female in my sig also has a reverse mask. She was a rescue, and her conformation wasn't the best, but she had the truest GSD temperament of any dog I've ever owned. I was too new to the GSD world to title her, and didn't realize it was possible in a dog that had no pedigree, but she was a wonderful tracker, and very protective of our home and car.

She once bit a man delivering flyers when he came to the house, and didn't see her until he was almost right ontop of her. Fortunately, he was wearing a leather jacket, so no real damage was done. I have no doubt she would have also protected the house if anyone had broken in.  You dared not even put your hand inside the car when she was there, yet if you were outside of the car, she would take treats from you (always with our supervision, of course.)

Re. loose lips...I am seeing more and more of this in the show lines. It is totally against the standard, yet judges do not penalize it, nor do they penalize the short snouts and apple-domed skulls that are showing up with increasing frequency. I HATE IT!!  The lips dry out, and then you have to peel this sticky layer of saliva and dead skin off them!

I love the reverse mask! To me, it is old school GSD. Love it.

Of course, some of my favorite dogs have this....

Ansgar vom Kalibeck. Several of her litter mates have this as well. And they do go back to Lord... amongst many other very nice dogs.

jackie harris

 

My dogs work in real life venues.  Nothing is more important than temperament.  Health and looks mean nothing if the temperament I want and need is not there.  Reverse masks are my least favorite, but if it were the best dog for the job, that is the one that would come home with me regardless of what other pups in the litter looked like.

In my many decades of owning/raising/training/and breeding, I most definitely have tracked a correlation between certain colors/patterns and traits/temperaments in the GSD.

I almost never speak of it..  too much ignorance to argue with.. those who have been in the breed long enough understand what I am talking about.

The reverse mask, in my experience, is linked to dogs with great balance and discernment in ALL that they do...  they are always ON and ready, yet just as quick to realize when there is NOT a threat.. so.. NOT "reactive", but clear headed..  afraid of NOTHING, but wonderfully smart..quick..they really do have a uniqueness about them.

Yes, it will carry on in the offspring..  I covet the masks..  they are prepotent NEET NEET looking dogs, with personality to match.

Read your old books, and you will discover that LIGHTER faced dogs were desired for herding..apparently, sheep are less frightened by lighter faces.

The kriminalpolizei lines were all this type..serious... and lean, fast looking working dogs...  look them up!

I'd take the GOLD color reverse mask marking ANY DAY over the orange pumpkin color that is beginning to mutate the show lines..  the "wet" loose, lippy, heavy dogs..  inbred on the same 4 or 5 dogs overandoverandover..... I see it in lots of DDR lines too, being bred ONLY for look, color..so called "purity"...  without regard for anything else!

PLEASE do the best for you breeding, and bring some balance back!!  I am with Jenni and Joan... 

Ugly is not color/markings!!          (I have a folder on my computer FILLED with ugly mutated freaks of nature)

 

                                                                 ###BREED FOR BALANCE!!!###

 

 

Reverse masks..

 

the reverse mask is on the left.. eyes that look right into you..     this from a different litter..

(I have more..but they need to be scanned.....  )

there is  training video at 17  months on his workng dog profile and ton of pcs

http://www.working-dog.eu/dogs-details/463417/Extra-Gila-v--d--Duca-Vallei

 

 

Some messed up logic here, little thing called cause and effect.

so as someone says sheep herders chose lighter faced dogs because they did not startle the sheep. notice it wasn't said as;  dogs that were good at herding sheep BECAUSE they had lighter coloured faces.

let me rationally reconstruct the past for you based on logic and elementary principles of inheritance and selective breeding;

herding sheep requires athletic dogs with balanced drives, great nerves and environmentals, in the german way they also required calm full grips and an ability to trot for long hours mainly in straight lines.

some german farmer put down his wine flask and his stick of wurst one day and observed that lighter face dogs starled sheep less so they started selecting  lighter faced dogs from their gene pool.

it does not follow that lighter faced dogs magically CAUSED and produced desired athletic dogs with balanced drives, good nerves & environmentals,  calm full grips and trotting endurance BECAUSE they had lighter coloured faces, seriously i have to explain this.

someone else mentioned black ddr dogs, then they said that because they were bred for dark pigment over anything else they finally lost their working ability - well DUH.

according to the general logic expressed in this thread then because they had darker pigment then the working traits should have been inherited because they had dark pigment. you don't get to have it both ways and call yourself rational.

same for black and tan, dark sable etc, etc, etc and whatever is selling at any given moment.... unless you have identified a genetic marker you can cite that links reverse masks to say "balanced drives" then you do not get to say, albeit implied, that colour  CAUSES specific working traits, prepotent and all lol.

shitty breeders have proved over and over that just because you breed dark sables does not CAUSE them to be great working dogs.

it's like watching a fox hunt, a fox  sticks it's head up here so the the hunters (breeders) all go galloping that away, the fox dissapears and stick it's head up over there so y'all turn on a dime and gallop off that away.

sheesh, a guy who lives in a shack that owns his first GSD  not only has to teach you basic biology and logic but has to tell you the ONLY thing that produces working dogs is selective breeding based on working and testing the dogs and the progeny, dang i am glad some of you folks are not manufacturing jet engines, you would paint them red so they would go faster.

 

 

The dog in question is not 'maskless', ie not without any mask at

all, he just has what lots of people refer to as 'reversed mask' but

I have always known just as 'limited masking' (maybe difference

between States and UK).  As someone (Hexe ? Jenni ?) has said

on an earlier page, there are poorly pigmented dogs about,  who

have completely light faces, often they are missing black from elsewhere

on the body eg saddle, also.  I tend to think such an 'all tan' sort of dog

is likely to be BYB.  As such, I believe they are faulty - but I don't think

of even the palest face as  'ugly', much less 'hideous'.  And it makes

bugger-all difference to temperament & working ability, so far as I have

ever been able to see.  "No good dog is a bad colour".  to Duke for

breeding with what he wants to breed with, not letting anybody change

his mind for him, based on what the dog looks like.  It isn't a question of

faulty structure, its not even against the Standard, as such.

I 'like' a nice well-defined mask, or even a very dark whole face, as

much as the next person, but its really not of huge importance IMO.

Actually the "ugliest" dogs I have seen are a line of dark Sables, who

had (maybe still have, didn't look lately !) very mis shapen, lumpy heads-

but they were excellent workers and well-constructed bodily, so what's

it matter ?  If anyone doesn't want to live with a dog they consider not

good looking enough, then don't ;   but do not try to influence other

peoples' breeding plans with such folly.  Geezz ! ... shades of human

society prejudices, or what ?