SchH titled, American bred GSDs of the 70s, 80s, 90s – questions and a list - Page 2

I believe the OP was asking for AMERICAN SHOW LINE dogs that are titled in Schutzhund. Most of you are mentioning German lined dogs, imported and bred in the United States...there are plenty of American bred dogs that get Schutzhund titles these days...but most of them are rooted in German lines...they are not what is commonly considered American Show Lines.

An easy way to see this in a pedigree is when the majority of the pedigree has SZ registration numbers rather than AKC registration numbers. If the parents/grandparents/great grandparents have SZ numbers...those are German lines...not American.

So how many generations back is considered American lines, and is this a convention? Do you consider more than 4 generations of non-import dogs to be of American-bred lines?

Your last posted mail is wrong. just because a dog has an SV number does not mean he is an SV bred dog.
The dog is just registered with SV to do all the formal things like Körung.
Anyway, when you talk about American show lines, do you really mean that.
Are you talking about These totally overangulated, loose Dogs with Long necks and short not well angulated upper arms?
A dog bred in the US with 2 Generation on father and motherline bred in the US is not an American bred dog, just People bred right after doing x-rays, titles, Shows and breedsurvey?
I am confused.
Maybe I missunderstood your post?

A dog whos parents and Grandparents are Born in the US are not American lines. How fare back dog they have to go?


You are listing Dogs in your first post who come in 2nd Generation from German Dogs.

What are you trying to proof with this post?

I am curious! Please let me know, what all this is about?

American lines or nor???

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=612787-ankaa-vom-nadelhaus

Oskar that is most definitely not an American line dog.

At least thru the late 80s Fidelco did in fact "stud" out at least locally. I almost bred to Vasko v Kirschental and had a friend who did plus knew several other breeders who used their stud dogs. Often tho not always it was with folks also looking to produce dogs capable if guide work or wanting that stability of temperament and character. That didn't always work out either. I remember one Christmas letter from a friend that announced all her prospective guides in fact ended up being placed with the Ct State police.

Fidelco's history is interesting. Charlie and Robie Kamen originally met I believe in NJ and became part of a breeding consortium aiming to produce dogs suitable for guide work and Fidelco eventually grew out of this effort. But if you look back at the old 990's (not recent ones - sad to say Fidelco was taken over by a corporate raider for gad only knows what personal purpose who imho has destroyed it) you will see the mission statement always said to breed guide AND police dogs.

Nooooo, I learned on here from experts that you can't breed guide dogs AND police dogs from same stock.....lol. There was some solid American breeders in this country before the advent of the Lance craze!

Someone should write a book about the early days of American schutzhund before all the old timers and people involved are gone. Not just the hype from the BS artists, but how it all really happened and the dogs that got it going over here. It would for sure have enough drama and conflict to make a fascinating read.

I took a closer look at some of the pedigrees OP posted. Some of the dogs have German lineage as close as their sire or their dam. Looks like three of the pedigrees are related, with little information about the exact line that they are (except that the naming convention is American) but no pictures to confirm that they truly are ASL and not a mix or even what today would be called BYB or pet lines it probably says that whoever owned those dogs was just very dedicated and wanted to title those particular dogs.

It’s not unheard of that there are genetic variations which produce dogs that are capable of titling in Schutzhund. I’m sure people will get on me for this, but years ago the standards for titling were also lower. The dogs didn’t need to have the type of performance they do today in order to score high, and therefore to pass it is rational to assume that they didn’t need as great of a performance either. A lot of old timers also tell you that there was a lot more pressure on the dogs back then, I’ve seen enough videos of helper work in trial that tell me otherwise. Maybe the helpers in training would put more pressure on the dogs, beat them a little bit more than they do today due to the lack of understanding of training methods, but what I see in trial (mostly on world levels as those are some of the only videos available) is definitely less pressure than what many helpers are able to do today because technique is much more understood and taught.

Anyways…the reason that working ability and drive has diminished in those lines (it was already diminished by the time Schutzhund came to the US), is that it just wasn’t important or mandatory. An AKC Championship was more important to have so why would people bother with Schutzhund. On top of that, Schutzhund was not widely available, and it isn’t to this day…but the situation is much better and still it’s really small. The few people back then that started doing Schutzhund in the United States generally imported their dogs from Europe and had to keep importing in order to keep a “kennel” alive and genetically diverse enough. I know a few of these people and they’ll tell stories of how often they imported dogs, either for other people involved in the sport or for police departments. I’m guessing the American lines were way too far gone by that point to breed the working drive and ability back into them.

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses. I will follow up with more pedigrees ... and more questions.

Special thanks to Gustav for his posts based on decades in LE:
"One of the great American SL dogs, that produced dogs very capable of doing Sch work ( of course with right female) was the Lance son Cobert's Reno. He produced some 58 Champions, and I saw and worked many of his progeny in LE work." And:
"There was some solid American breeders in this country before the advent of the Lance craze!"
Thank you, I didn't know about the Cobert's Reno offspring succeeding in LE. Very, very interesting, and quite a different story from "American lines were too far gone' already at the time.

There is the phenomenon that quite a number of American bred dogs titled in SchH at that time, even though it was never a requirement for breeding in the US and in Canada. Thus the fact that it wasn't required doesn't explain why quite a few people did train and title American bred dogs, and then they stopped. Perhaps discouraged by the AKC's ban on 'bite sports' - but USCA stepped up and created possibilities to train and compete. Owners who didn't care about AKC's rosettes and the type of GSD favored in American show rings past Lance had an alternative.

SchH handlers began using imported dogs more and more. Why?
Fashion? Fewer health problems? Temperament? I remember Lineage saying that Winifred Strickland switched to imported GSDs b/c her American bred ones, though sound in temperament, had too many health problems.
Did the handlers of American bred or American/import outcrosses switch to imported dogs, or did they drop out of SchH? Drop out of SchH b/c they had hopes AKC would accept the sport, and then AKC didn't?