My wife and I own a 5 year old male GSD PPD. He is a very good PPD dog. In the near future we would like to get another, most preferably a puppy. I've been checking ads in various dog magazines and then reviewing their web sites.

I've found a number of breeders who claim to produce both show and working lines. My inclination is that if they're producing show lines then they're not actually producing working lines. But perhaps I'm dead wrong. Am I?

If your looking for a Working GSD for a PPD, then stay away from show lines!

Hi Patrick

Are the breeders breeding show and working lines seperate????? If not and they are saying their showlines can work the majority are just bluffing. Most show breeders will deny that their dogs will make crappy good police and protection dogs . Take the word of working breeders and trainers who are specifically breeding for work not show. They deliberately stay away from show bloodlines because for generations these dogs have been bred to trot around the show ring and look pretty. Dogs from working bloodlines are bred for generations to excel at work, so you can see which one you'll be going to if you need a protection dog <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
Of course you will find that their are exceptions to this with some show dogs from German showlines making as working dogs in police departments, but these dogs are a rareity to be honest.Not all working bloodlines are perfect either. Some breeders who have show dogs that are titled in schutzhund will claim that they are working dogs because of this. The fact is that many experienced trainers will agree that a weak nerved dogs can be titled quite high in schutzhund, so just because a dog has a title does not equal it to a top working dog. The bottom line is if you are serious about getting a puppy from wortking bloodlines go to a breeder who breeds for real work such as police or security, this is where their dogs are proving themselves day in and day out. Or soemone who has breeding stock that has done protection training in prey and fight drive with their dogs. Schutzhund can be done mostly in prey, where as a real working dog needs to be worked in defensive drive too which reflects a real life scenairo (police,security). Most show dogs are said to have very little defensive or fight drive because they have had it bred out of them over the past few decades and all their bitework in schutzhund is done in prey drive.

I hope I've explained it alright, do a search on the Leerburg forum on show/working lines where you'll find heaps of information on this topic, probably explained better by the experts. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Go to the Leerburg website aswell and take a read of their training articles on bloodlines.

Good luck with your new pup