Quote: Becky Niedbalka

So does the angulation affect his ability to run?

Becky, I believe your GSD is from North American show lines, correct? If so, he probably has what would be called a sloped back, but not a roached back with its pronounced hump. (I believe you've already said as much.) In addition, he probably has long, overangulated hind limbs, which may include sickle hocks, cow hocks, loose, floppy movement, etc. The short answer to your question is, yes, this unnatural type of hind limb conformation can affect his ability to run (or to walk, jump, climb stairs, etc.). He has been bred almost exclusively for the look of the flying trot, seen from the side, in the show ring. There is nothing functional, natural, or healthy about it.

Of course none of us here on the board have seen photos or video of your dog, so we can only go on your description and what is commonly known about the characteristics bred into show line GSDs these days.

I think you might like to look into the possibility of purchasing this book. Here is a link, and you can actually take a sneak peek at a good portion of it for free. There are detailed explanations, photos, and drawings illustrating the various types of GSD conformation and movement.

Mods, please remove if it's not appropriate for me to post this link here:

http://www.shawlein.com/

I just thought something like this might help Becky find answers to the questions she has about her dog that we are unable to fully answer here without seeing him.

I don't know if this is allowed, please delete if it is not, this is him in show that I was tagged in on FB before we got him, it shows most of what I was trying to explain
https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207359375522256&id=1222243081&set=a.10207359357681810.1073741850.1222243081

And thank you Cheri! I will look up that book tonight! He was originally bred in MI and moved to Manitoba afterwards. I found out yest while giving him a bath that while laying sideways he cannot open his back legs so I could scrub btwn them, and he always stands on his back toes, you can see his muscles rippling on the back legs as he sways a bit in the show stance.

That's the flying trot I was talking about.

With ideal angulation the rear paw should fall into the same print that the front paw leaves.

Most show line dogs usually over reach with their rear paw and actually pass the front print.

In order to keep from actually hitting their rear paw against the front paw the dog has to place the rear foot to the outside of the front paw.

Running at the flying trot the dog should do what is called a single track.

In other words, looking at the dog's track in the snow when trotting there should be one single line of paw prints thus the single track.

Show folks will tell you that this helps the dog cover more ground when herding yet this over reaching and excess angulation didn't start till the 1970s in the show ring.

Before that it wasn't uncommon for GSDs to excel in both the show ring and Schutzhund competition or the German style herding called the HGH.

The SV which is the main governing body of the GSD said that no GSD could earn it's show line title without either a Sch title OR an HGH herding title.

The results is that the Germans started cranking out "working" titles that meant little BUT it qualified them for the show ring.

I've gone to a couple of the SV Nationals when they were held her at Purina Farms in Gray Summit Missouri.

Out of aprox 80 males and 80 females in the "protection" phase of the show I saw maybe 5-6 dogs that I would have taken home.

Some refused to grip the helpers sleeve and a few actually turned and ran during the attack out of the blind and the long attack.

Some of the owners on the side line were actually praying that their dogs would grip the helper.

The American show line GSD don't have any requirement to have a working title in order to get their CH.

They just show up and preferably with a professional handler to handle them.

Again, this excess angulation wasn't seen before the very late 60s and exploded in the 70s because of one or two big winning dogs that were then bred to.

Big winners in any breed, correct or not, will become in demand as the dog to breed to. The latest fad!

He does over reach with the back, sometimes almost stepping on it, what a horrible fad, I would not purchase a dog like this but could not leave him to a kennel-life, can it be trained out?

I think he was still in show until last year, and than used exclusively for breeding, after some research I found he was born July 14 2009.
Right now since his recall is so good, I have him off leash and have trained him to come sit by me when a car comes, to which he gets petted as it passes, and released once it is far enough that we can stop eating dust kickup, so I am hoping with being off lead and the ability to stretch his legs, that he will become more doggy and less trophy, it should be a crime to treat an animal that way, sometimes, watching him stand like that or not trotting beside the kids normally, you just get so mad, thankfully after I confronted the previous owner about his teeth, she stopped commenting on my pictures on fb, and stopped with her excuses.

On another note, he is finally eating over 3 cups of food a day, and I found a place in ontario with free shipping that sells natural wet dog stew, canned but grain free, gmo free and seems healthy enough, for now til it gets here he is getting bits of caribou and chicken, he hates the sardines so I had to mix it with some cruddy wet food, I also bought him some digestive enzymes, and will try that with the canned stew. Thank you guys for your knowledge, I really appreciate it, feels good to know a little more about what he has gone through, thank goodness nothing affected his personality!

Bottom line is to enjoy your dog.

Doesn't matter if he's from show lines, working lines or the city pound.

They are all still our buddies!

 Quote: Bob Scott

Bottom line is to enjoy your dog.

Doesn't matter if he's from show lines, working lines or the city pound.

They are all still our buddies!

Absolutely agreed! Love him, enjoy him, and give him the best care you can, all of which I know you're already doing. He's a lucky dog to have ended up living with you and your family!

Will do! We are lucky to have him too!

This is interesting. Here is a photo that shows the position of the front and rear paws in the flying trot that Bob explained:
http://kdnos-vzreja.weebly.com/remo.html

The dog in this picture is a half-sib to my GSD (same father, Hunk von Bad Boll, though my dog Zevi is short haired and looks much more like his dad than this dog does). Zevi has some angulation but is not roached - he single-tracks in snow and doesn't do a flying trot like this, but I've never trained him to. I've discussed angulation with his breeder, who has been breeding from imported European lines for nearly 30 years. She told me that she used to breed very square non-angulated working dogs, but found they tended to develop arthritis earlier, she thought due to them having a very up-and-down pile-driver kind of gait. Now she tries to put a little angulation in "to give them some suspension" as she put it.

When Zevi stretches out in a fast run he has this amazingly graceful long fluid stride. He's very athletic and can hike all day with me over rough country. I'm still reserving judgment on the angulation thing - I've always had much squarer non-angulated GSDs before - so we'll see how well Zevi ages (he's now almost 6). I'm not defending the extremes to which breeders of American show line GSDs have taken angulation, just saying that it might be more complex than any angulation is bad.

Hopefully Jazz will get stronger and more flexible with good food and exercise. He sounds like a really sweet dog who lucked out.

I would also add that the dog in the picture has horrible reach with the front.

At full stride in the flying trot the front leg all the way to the shoulder should be straight and aprox reach on a plane with tip of the nose at full reach.

That dogs is also bent at the elbow which could mean poor shoulder angulation.

They sure do cover a lot of ground for five mins in a flat ring though huh!?

A correctly structured will never have "a pile driving gate".

The GDS herded sheep for more then a century with those "pile driving gates" and it wasn't changed till the 70s, again because of a big winning dog of the period that was the new fad and "The dog to breed to".

If I recall, Ed started his kennel named after one of the last great show/working dogs in the late 60s Bernd Learberg.

I dare any one to find and major faults in this dog.
http://leerburg.com/bernd.htm

THAT'S a real GSD!!!!

I believe most long term breeders may realize this but to many yrs of following the trends are hard to go back on.