German shepherd 1957 all the GSD experts here watch good - Page 4

I didn’t realize that this was going to be a bash the showlines thing. I don’t care for those discussions because they don’t get anywhere anyways. What I focused on was the incorrect statement that someone can watch a video and deduct HEALTH from that video. Or even a picture. Or see a dog with a certain structure and that means it has to be unhealthy. All of these things are incorrect and I hate seeing them on the internet because a novice person comes on, reads it, and starts to spread it like its fact and law, when in reality it couldn’t be further from the truth.

I don’t compare DOMESTICATED DOGS to WOLVES. It’s pointless. There is very little gained from comparing wild cousins to their domesticated versions. The wolf is the way it is because the dangers of the wild and the hardships of survival. Thousands of years of domestication has been only partially reversed in the last century (at least when it comes to the GSD), and that is not something that has been completed yet. On top of that, the JOB has changed and is constantly changing, which only leads to a change in the breeds and dogs themselves.

Different people have different goals they’re breeding for, and when it comes to the GSD, the split in breeder goals has been going on for longer than it has with some of the other working breeds. Popularity and adaptability of the breed has led to that more than anything. There’s really no going back, and anyone that is into the other working breeds and thinks the same thing isn’t likely to happen to their beloved breed as popularity continues to rise…is living under a rock.

As with any dog, no matter the breed, you have to base your decision on the breeder and the dogs in front of you as you’re making the decision to purchase. Making sweeping generalizations of the whole breed is unnecessary and goes nowhere. As with any breed, there are good and bad examples of the breed. If you believe that you can go to just any breeder and get a solid dog of a particular breed for a particular job that breed is known to excel at…you’re living under an even bigger rock.

Absolutely agree with BW's post ^^^

Show me one breed of dog that today looks exactly
like its ancestors from e.g. the 1920s; ALL breeds
change to some extent, some for the better, most for
the worse, because all have been subject to breeders
developing them. The reasons for those developments
vary, some are for working purposes, some for fashion,
some for health. But they all change.

 

And the wolf is ancestor for all our dogs, not just GSDs...

B W and Hundmutter excellent posts, commenting accurately without put downs, thank you.

Nice to hear some voices of reason on this particular topic for a change. Thanks for the lift.

I think what this proves is that change (into the "flavor of the day" effectively) is not always for the good. Change can be both structural (correctable) and temperamental (not correctable). The point to look at the wolves (as stated by a guy who won the GSD herding world championship 13 times and is a master shepherd himself) is not to compare the wildness of a wolf with a domesticated dog......it is to point out that the wolf has an ideal physical structure that has been "proofed" via 1000s of years of natural selection, to do everything that the GSD is bred to do, really really well.........and then the changes that humans are effecting on the "domestic dog" side via "flavor of the day" selective breeding. The "flavor of the day" keeps changing, and the physical dog also clearly keeps on changing (via destructive selective breeding) to keep pace. So if you feel you are straying too far from the ideal via "flavor of the day" breeding, the point is to go back to the template of the "ideal structured" wolf to make the necessary course corrections on the structural side.

Why is "selective breeding" destructive ? Because when you are picking the individuals with the "flavor of the day" structure, and eliminating the others that don't have the "flavor of the day" structure, you also lose valuable traits from the breed, that were present in the non-selected individuals, for ever. Gone !

These structural changes have not just restricted themselves to the showline side, but has also snuck into the working line side, and so applicable on both sides. Thankfully, there are still some breeding lines on the working side that have steadfastly maintained both the structure (closer to the wolf's template), and even more importantly, the temperament (courage, discriminativeness, balanced drives, natural suspicion of strangers etc).

Wolves herd sheep? Wolves are active K9s? The internet is a whole new world I guess.

How about Wolf's trotting (they are literal machines when it comes to this quintessential GSD requirement) ? How about wolf's jumping (required for a GSD) ? How about the endurance of the wolf enabled again via its structure and the effortless economy of movement that it affords ? All of these traits being enabled by  the "structure".

Makes sense or still have questions on why the wolf is in the picture, when it comes to assessing the suitability of a trotter's structure ? Clearly we are not talking about the wolf's temperament vis-a-vis that of the GSD.

PS: Bringing the wolf into the picture when talking about an ideal trotter's structure, was not done by me, but by Manfred Heyne, a master shepherd who won the GSD herding world championships, a record 13 times.  

And you can provide scientific data that a wolf can trot for longer than a GSD? I’m assuming you also have scientific data that proves the angulation and structure of a wolf is more efficient than a GSD? Or am I supposed to for some reason just accept the word of a “master shepherd” who more than likely doesn’t have a biology degree and has probably never studied wolves and yet is somehow an expert in wolf biology and structure and how it relates to trotting, jumping, and its effect on the endurance of an animal? Is there any scientific data to back any of this up? Or are we just doing that “normal dog trainer” thing where we just blindly listen to anyone that has done anything for longer than we have as if they’re the expert on all things and repeat it as if it’s law even though we don’t really have any real basis to believe the information we are given? I did a little quick research, an acre of pasture can support 2-5 sheep, maybe more, depending on the conditions. A square mile has 640 acres. A large herd of sheep is about 800. So in total a large herd needs 160-400 acres to graze on (and this is if they don’t move). So a herd that size, needs less than a square mile of land total to survive. Let’s assume the use of a GSD to tend the herd, how much will the dog really “move” in order to keep it in one place? More than 30 miles in one day? Would be interesting to track.

I just did a quick google search on the wolf and their movement as I am not an expert in all things wolf, but maybe some of you here are and have conducted studies on wolves so feel free to correct me if I am wrong. A wolf can trot at 5mph, it can run at about 35mph, they can move about 30 miles a day. What makes you think that a GSD can’t do that…or to relate it to this discussion, what makes you think a GSD can’t do it more efficiently? Let’s reference the AD, a 12.5 mile run the dog is expected to compete in a little under 2 hours, so a speed of just about 6.25mph (significantly higher than that of a wolf trot). So the movement of a wolf amounts to about 3 ADs over a 24 hour period. You really believe a GSD can’t do that?

Unfortunately, most working line people (myself included in that) have shunned the show ring and the reasons behind the angulation of the rear end of the GSD. Many hold on to the pictures of the dogs from the early 1900s that Stephanitz bred as if they were the epitome of the breed and nothing could ever be better. Why not? We EXPECT advancement in every other area of our lives, but when it comes to dog breeds they can’t possibly be improved upon what was done hundreds or thousands of years ago? It makes very little sense. If you truly want to make a comparison, and understand how EFFICIENCY plays into the structure of the GSD, compare the GSD to other breeds of dogs. I’ve seen quite a few other working breeds complete ADs while working side by side with GSD and each and every time that dog looked much more worn out, tongue was sticking out way more, and the dog was huffing and puffing at a much faster rate than the GSD it ran next to. This was not just with moderately angulated GSD, but also some with what many would consider much more extreme angulation

But look at even what many would consider acceptable angulation and “nice looking” and you’ll see that it’s different from most other dog breeds and yes, wolves. To assume that the angulation is incorrect only because nature hasn’t “done it” that way, is to completely ignore other reasons and aspects of natural selection that might’ve led wild animals to be the way they do… It’s extremely faulty thinking that humans cannot improve on nature and goes against the core idea behind “dog breeds” as a whole. Dog breeds exist because people wanted to improve upon nature and focus on particular traits, if nature was best…we’d only need to look there for what we need.

Bav, we spoke about the trotting speed a while ago http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/community.read?post=847132-sloping-backlines-and-over-angulation&p=16

I really had to smile about your memories at AD trials - besides handling on shows I handled a lot of dogs at AD trials (" You are young, handle my dog! ") - my experience: no other breed is able to trot that efficiently as the German Shepherd dog; sometimes owners of Mals took part - no chance...

But within our breed there are differences, too:

• Not enough angulation = not able to trot fast, trying to gallop instead, able to trot for a long period, but sloooow ( we always had to wait for them, always embarrassing for the handlers )
• Too much angulation = fast, but not able to trot for a long period, too, unstable in the movement ( the owners tried to avoid the whole distance out of good reasons )
• Well angulated dogs ( more than the wolve, but less than the really overangulated show lines ) made the best impression in case of speed and endurance