Who Owns or Has owned a WL X SL Cross .. facts not opinions - Page 4

I saw Oller and Floyd compete at a couple of nationals. A very nice dog! Also, your SL dog going through Cim and Trieizbach(sp) are two of the lines at that time that produced solid temperament in SL. Nice dogs!

Ulla was also a very nice dog and the sharing of only one ancestor for 7 generations points to the success of her puppies being due to good breeding on both sides of Oller's and Ulla's pedigree.  Oller was labeled as working line while Ulla was labeled as show line but those labels were meaningless to their offspring in terms of quality or performance.  When I was searching for a mate for Ulla I had several IPO/Sch supposed gurus tell me that show line and working line should not be bred??  Floyd Wilson started out with AKC Poodles as a trainer and I am sure he could have titled a Poodle in Sch .. training and titles in a particular sport or work does not indicate breeding worth of a dog male or female for all sports or work. 

We all have our individual experiences to shape our opinions

Gustav is of course quite right about that !

So where are all those experts from the working side who know

all about why this cross can't work ?   Remarkably silent ...

 

Bubba, I have refrained from posting on this thred because my

British experience in this issue is so different from the American one.

But your aside about "may as well talk about an Italian x British dog"

made me laugh.  I have already typed out a long post only to lose the

darn thing just as I got to the end - hope that doesn't happen today !

 

There will have been many crosses between Italian dogs and British ones;

they will mostly be Showlines, and they will mostly be based on both sides

on W German S/L.   The UK has had a very good reputation for all things

'dog' over the years and most of Europe has bought dogs from us ...

 

The UK ' Work v. Show '  differences are not as demarcated as they have become

in the States;   although some hundsports people now import the DDR Czech etc

dogs,  working GSDs have mostly come from Show and/or Pet stock in the past,

as I say, all based on W German breeding.  But  'Working' covers a wide variety

of competition and skills, from Competitive Obedience, thru' Working Trials, SAR,

Guide Dogs, to SchH/IPO.  With, for a long time, more dogs doing the earlier things

in that list, only more recently has IPO become more popular.  That's partly because

of the attitude of our Kennel Club to 'foreign titles';  partly 'cos we could import German

stock fairly easily and use dogs that were titled successfully in their homeland;  partly as

we - if rich enough  - could afford to send dogs to/back to Germany to train and qualify,...

and partly due to the inertia of a good proportion of Show breeders, who didn't bother.

 

It follows that a lot of GSD which HAVE been competitors in WT, Ob., etc. were dogs

which would not have made the grade in the Conformation rings for either of our two

'types' [Germanic  or  Alsatian] but could be useful, even highly successful in other

pursuits.   Though my 'personal' dogs have been from S/L, I have had dogs with me at

work etc which fell into the category of being bred from a mixture of lines.  Many of them

going back to the UK version of great working dogs - one of our well-known 'dual purpose

Champions' of his time,  ('60s), for example;  others more recent and more specialised

dogs.

Very few were completely butt-ugly and out of compliance with the Breed Standard;  a few

had conformation faults of one sort or another, but they all basically looked like GSDs.

And, frankly, ability, drive,  intelligence, discrimination, endurance and temperament

VARIED.  Some had more of each, some much less.  The dogs with the most 'working

blood' were just as likely to lack such attributes,  the Show and/or Pet bred ones just as

likely to excel in them.  I've had really clever and hard-working dogs which were more

S/L and some really daft and lazy ones that were largely W/L.   So that explains why, for

myself, I can never be discouraging to folk who want to 'cross the lines'.

 

 

I have an 18 month old male WGSL/WL cross. The sire is a WGSL, my competition dog that I have raised and trained from 7 weeks. He has over 25 titles in many sports, has SchH title, did breed survey, still competing almost every month, etc. The female is WL, I believe German/western Euro lines. The owner of the female has many decades of breed experience (has probably been in GSDs and working dogs longer than I've been alive) and seems respected by the GSD club and people around here. I first met her a few years back at bitework training. I had not met her bitch before the breeding. It was not a pedigree that I personally care for, but I am not the breeding police and she has so much more experience than me and had been communicating with me and watching my male for years, so I assumed she knew what she wanted. It was my male's first live cover litter (two ties) and her female was maiden but conceived 12 puppies. I originally had no interest in a puppy, wasn't sure what I would do with a dog from this mix and like I said, the female wasn't personally my cup of tea. However I changed my mind and she sent me two puppies after the litter was born (she had moved several states away after the breeding took place). I am not doing IPO right now because of financial commitments in other dog sports and not having enough time to travel for good helperwork, so I chose the more laid back puppy to keep as an active pet. A friend of mine has the other puppy and is doing several dog sports with him. I can't really gauge the success of the breeding since it wasn't my litter. I like the puppy I got, I have no intention of selling him and have been training him as my next competition dog. He's already competed and titled and has several more things lined up this spring and summer. There are things I like and don't like about him, nothing I couldn't have guess based on the pedigree. Like others have mentioned, I do believe that with the SL/WL cross, it is hard to predict the consistency of the litter. I don't know where all the other puppies went or what they are doing. I never intended for this male to be a breeding prospect and in fact, he's already been altered (I can't have two intact male GSDs, my other male won't allow it and since he's the dog that has put in over 6 years training, work, and competing for me, he is the king of our castle). For the price of my stud fee I'm very, very happy with the dog I got. He's a nice pet, I like him a lot (I'm more attached to him than I am with dogs this age, usually it takes me 2-3 years to really develop a bond with a dog), he's got the drive I need to do the other dog sports I'm currently involved in and all my friends/teammates/training instructors are very impressed with him. His hips, elbows, and spine looked good/normal at 7 months.

This might be a provoking question, but in case both parents (working / showline ) show great working skills -
What´s the difference between a working/showline cross and a workingline outcross ( no linebreeding within 5 or even more generations )?

In my book there is no real difference biologically...but nobody will say, that combination is a no-go.

Gain is either or all depending on the work parent

improving structure/conformation

opening up genetics of offspring

Allover balance

 

 

Gain is either or all depending on show parent

Improving work ability

Solidifying certain traits

Opening up of genetics of offspring

 

In my opinion, no show or work breeder would do a cross if his bitch line does not benefit from it

The bitch line should always "benefit", no matter out of which line the sire is. There is no "perfect" dog.

Again my question: What´s the difference between a workingline outcross ( no linebreeding ) and a WL/SL cross?

A lot of people, who are against WL/SL crosses, write, that the puppies out of WL/SL crosses will differ, but during the same time there are puppy ads proudly stating "linebreeding free".
Biologically there is no difference...

You can breed working line dogs and still avoid linebreeding and backmassing. It may not be that easy to do, but I've seen it and see bitch owners asking for "Fero free" or "Troll free" studs. It seems a lot of people have been successful with some west German working line to Czech working line breedings. This would still be a full working line litter, but different bloodlines of working line previously separated by generations of breeding a different type.

That´s my point, VKGSD -

in case there is a "linebreeding free" litter within one line ( be it working or show ) this litter will be announced as "special", "rare", "outstanding",  but biologically there is no difference to a WL/SL cross ( as long as you use two good dogs ).