...i need some ideas on how to tactfully cope with and direct the growning number of owners in my service dog group who have whites that they are training or have finished as service dogs. i have no personal experience with either these dogs in particular,or with whites in general,but in the 30 some years i have been in GSDs i have always heard that they are not stable,and all kinds of odd things. so i am really nervous about these folks having them as service dogs,to say the least. in answer to things i have posted from SV and other breed sources that this is not a desireable colour,i get the usual line about how this is an old colour,etc,and they close up ranks. but what are these dogs like for real? i'm not so concerend about them physically,but how sound they are in temperment,etc. can anyone help me find out more on this,please?

Gail,
Why not just do a good temperament test on every dog coming into training and let those that pass go onto further training?
That would be the most fair ( and safest ) course. Some white GSD's will pass and some will fail. But the same can be said of Sable GSD's, Black & Tan Gsd's, etc.
White GSD's aren't famous for their working ability, but some can so the work so you lose nothing by testing *all* dogs that enter the program.

God,i would love to be able to do that! but as a group of owners scattered across N.America, i can't. a dog doesn't have to be a purebred anything to be an outstanding SD,but i'm becoming nervous about this growing number of white GSDs being trained as psychiactric service dogs, the most sensitive of all the SD task sets. so i'm worried about their temperment,and such. if i had my way,i would have everyone here where i could supervise it all,but its much the same as this group-folks from all over posting here,with widely varied abilities ranging from thinking they know what they are doing,but have really bad actors,to people who have many years experience in training for obedience,to people with program trained dogs who are adding more tasks....i'm left with more or less trying to read between the lines,and helping them make the best choices...not fun.... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Ahh, undestood there Gail, I didn't understand the situation.

You're not going to find many long-term obedience folks with the White GSD's, for the most part.

And having been in Medicine for several years in the past,I'll just hold my comment about "psychiatric service dogs" to myself......

Gail,

White Shepherd Thread

Go through this thread and see if you can extract any info to bolster your case. I posted my own 2 cents on why people shouldn't look to the White Shepherd as a candidate for any sort of job.

....yes,this pretty much is what i have seen in my research of this. i have one owner who is doing flyball with her SDIT,and i think is planning to go for the obedience ring evenutally. its just this dichotomy between what i read by the experts, the experience i have with breeding birds with both the normal colouring and the lutino (as the white phase would be called in cockatiels), and what i keep hearing from people who own these dogs. granted,none of them are what i would think of as being really experienced dog people,but i don't hear any undertones of problems that they are ignorning or working around either.. but from having had a short exposure to the RinTinTin line (mostly CanAm Hoofprint dogs in that line now),i am really nervous,because both the young adult i saw and both pups had serious temperment issues:the adult wired,literally bouncing off the walls and rocketing around the room on the furniture,and the two pups fearful of being handled to the point of clawing and biting to be let go so they could run to hide in a crate. there were whites in the litters both these pups came from-typical of RTT breeding to have both normals and whites,since they are breeding for the grey colour and nothing else. but this tiny exposure of mine to CanAm lines,combined with experience with what happens to an animal when something as basic as its colour is changed, does not encourage me...but how to gently dissuade people from this? several with white GSDs,and one with white boxers...again,something i know nothing about other than it is not an accepted colour....
*sigh*....what a mess...

will what steps are taken to give a good tempermant test?

Jason, that's subjective - what I'd what for a temperament test for a sound working dog would likely DQ a dog from a more pet-like test like the CGC.

So the goal of the test ( working, pet, service dog ) would would decide what different exercises made up a temperament test.

The Delta Society & Therapy Dog International tests are a good starting point. A Schutzhund BH would also be useful -- especially the part B (Traffic) portion with it's exposure to crowds and other dogs.

Personally, and this is just me, but if the dog can handle the service dog training just like the sables and black and tans, who cares what color it is? In the shelter I volunteer for, I've met some very stable GSDs of all the colors and some very not so stable ones of all the colors. I'll have to read up on this some more, but eh, if it gets the job done, who cares?