LONG COAT BREEDING TO SHORT COAT - Page 1

Hello eveyone.
I just saw an announcement yesterday from SV reemphasizing that long coat GSDs should not be bred to short coats.
And I heard this ruling has been made since 2010.

Please can anyone direct me to articles, or a link where this original ruling was made by the SV in 2010 for reference purposes?

Thanks.

Look first to breed history: it was Von Stephanitz originally who made the decision that GSDs with long coats and NO undercoat were 'unsuitable for breeding', dogs with long coats but which did have an undercoat were 'less suitable for breeding', and then that rough-coated and shaggy-coated dogs (despite the variety of coat-types existent in the collection of sheepdogs that formed the foundation stock of the GSD as a new & distinct breed ) were removed from the SV breeding pool (this in relation to setting up the Koerbuch in 1922).

The SV however kept IN 'long coats with undercoat' as dogs which were allowed to be breed surveyed and exhibited (and thus bred from, even if in limited degree) - this situation continued right up until the late 1960s. Although there were limits, I understand, to their exhibition and Survey, with no higher than a 'Good' grading and K.Class 2 being allowed to be awarded. My thanks to Louis Donald for this refresher - In his article in this June's UK Breed Council National Magazine, Louis says he had trouble finding a date when this situation was brought to an end. But at some point towards the end of the '60s, it was indeed brought to an end, because the SV issued a new Rule that disallowed 'long coats WITH undercoat' from being Breed Surveyed or exhibited. Since in Germany the Survey and breeding are officially linked, this meant that in effect the SV moved long coats from being 'less suitable for breeding' to 'NOT suitable for breeding'; so the whole thing of long coats not being exhibited stems from there, and was picked up around the world. Where it stayed until earlier THIS Century.

It may not have been 'possible' to exhibit longcoats in Show rings; they were generally not Surveyed, no matter which country they were in; but the world outside Germany DID breed with them. (And one suspects in some cases IN Germany also). Some people bred stock-coat to stock-coat and then found out they had carriers of longcoat genetics so still got coated pups; some people liked the structure of a coated dog, so used it in pairings in their breeding programmes anyway; some people deliberately bred longcoat to longcoat in order to produce MORE longcoats than average. Fluffy puppies have always sold well.

- Continuing my last post in a separate 'box' because I have now 'lost' text 3x while editing final paras !!! -

To the surprise of many of us, the SV amended the Standard, effective from December 2010, allowing 'longcoats with undercoat' to be exhibited and Koerunged, from their 2011 Survey Year. However, the ban on allowing the two coat varieties to interbreed continued. The FCI endorsed the change. Louis speculates the move was to incorporate a substantial number of dogs onto the SV Register to improve declining membership & benefit the sport; for myself I'd like to think at least some consideration was being given to limiting the breeding of longcoats specifically to increase the numbers 'on the market' - but the SV rarely publicly explains its decisions, so who knows ?

The WUSV's Breed Harmonisation Programme of 2018 repeated that breeding between the two coat types would not be allowed, and introduced two separate Registers, one for stock coats and one for long coats.

Here in the UK breeders asked whether they would no longer be at liberty to mate a long coated dog to a normal coated one, and were told by our WUSV Working Group that: " The Registration body in the UK is The Kennel Club and so this would only change if the Kennel Club made that decision. As they are reluctant to give separate classification to the two coat types and this information is not currently included on Registrations, it seems unlikely that any changes will occur in the foreseeable future."  I guess the AKC has taken, or would take, a similar line on this ?