The biggest problem I have always seen with people that "ban" things is that the way they sqweel that the uninformed think that there is a huge problem in this area, when in reality they are in the minority, and its not that big a deal. We here in Colorado had a few rottweillers bite kids in the past ten years, none of these dogs had been trained and the TV people would show this totally bummed out rott in the shelter. the situation was always something that could have been avoided. Again these same few people wanted to "ban" rottweilers I would like the silent majority to speak up sometimes. We got lucky here and they ditched the "ban" on Pitbulls with some pretty good legislation making the owner pay for raising an idiot dog. I wonder how ugly it would get if working and show people got together and tried t5o map out the future of the breed.

Unfortuanlty there ia a divide between show dog and working dogs - a divide so great that you could call these dogs two different breeds -
This is something that is and always will be.
In my opinion - you should stop worrying about the working ability of show dogs. At the end of the day - if you work within working stock dogs, you will never breed or buy a show dog, so what do you care if they work or not. Even if a show dog owns a shcutzhund title you know its probably worthless.
Show dogs are never going to work thats why theyre show dogs, let them get on with it.
Do you care as much about the working ability of other show dogs that once worked - probably not.

Just thinking If some german show bloodlines are in police forces in Australia then it proves they can do real work. The only thing it proves is that there are a lot of Police Dogs that shouldn't be on the street

can someone clarify the term working dog??? i was under the impression that all GSD's are from the working dog line...and that though the ages we have turned it into two different class of dogs. One being the show line and the other being the service line of dogs...i have been reading that even the so call working dog (service dogs) that we own, are actually from the showline side of the working of germany dogs.

i feel that both sides have there faults, and we all have different views on dogs, food, sports, books, etc... I guess the point i am trying to make is to love the breed, they are all German Shepherd's...it remind's me of my once hero, pete rose..i loved the man untill recently when i started to do research on him and found out that he loves the game of baseball, all he wanted to do is coach BUT not at the little league, high school, or college level..just the professional level...well to me that is not the love of the game...same with GSD's...so many different sizes shapes colors....dont you just got to love them all...ok i am done...

Hell no I don't love them all, and I won't say what I think of most non-working GSD breeders.

The true beauty of the breed is in it's utility and working ability, period.


If the breed doesn't have that working ability, if breeders are not striving to produce that working ability. . .what do we have?

A pretty pet.

(and even the pretty part is subjective, I think the German showlines are freaks of nature and only slightly better than the American showlines)

 Quote:

Originally posted by Robert VanCamp:
If the breed doesn't have that working ability, if breeders are not striving to produce that working ability. . .what do we have?

A pretty pet.

I will go further than that, I think you end up with a potentially dangerous pet. The end result of show breeders breeding "protective" breeds for the show ring is dangerous animals. The things required to succeed in the show ring is counter to what has been bred into protective dogs. Show breeders often talk about aggression; they deal with it by trying to "breed it out". The problem is that they are not breeding out aggression; they breed out an animal’s capability to warn you that it is aggressive. For example, the will select against dogs that growl. Such a selection does not select against aggression, it only selects against animals that WARN you that they are aggressive. The end result is you get dogs that attack people out of the blue. They go from sweet to attack without warning. When you get one of these dogs you are playing Russian roulette. You have no real idea what the dog’s boundaries are, because he can't tell you or you can't understand what he is telling you. When people get attacked by such dogs you always hear things like,-“ I could not believe he would do that”; “ he was such a sweet dog; he has always been gentle”; “he has no history of aggression”; etc etc. People who breed protective dogs for show are breeding very dangerous things into and out of the breed. Show breeders breed against the breed’s nature. Working breeders breed to refine the breed’s nature.

my curiosity has always been when the divide occurred. How many years ago was it when the disaster happened? The other is show line dogs getting schutzhund titles, what does this say of shutzhund, and are they all crap???? What percentages of them earned the title for real?

What i have seen yesterday was something i was warned to, but really did not belive. So i went to small trial (6 dogs), only one dog was handled by his owner (bicolor male, nice dog, trialed for ipo2), other than him all showline but one all black male trialed for ipo1 by same person. I really could not belive how unprepared this dogs were...I mean, repeating excercises, repeating commands, helper work on the level of my 12mo bitch...dogs letting go of sleeve on first sight of stick, not jumping and getting up on long down...All dogs passed.
Only one (bicolor male) did really nice routine. And black male has potential but really was not ready for trial.

Now, i know owner of one of dogs trialed that day, and she is just happy that 'that thing' is all over and her boy is home after 5 months...you know the dog now has ipo1 and can be shown in working class...and the pups can get their papers...But the thruth is that dog did nothing right in that trial. And the owner gives me sales pitch by recitating breed standard when talking about working ability. What breed standard? Those dogs are allready too big, too stupid and too nervous to be called working breed. And every single one of them has tsb 'pronaunced'.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />


Whell now i really am a beliver.
There are two breeds, there are two schutzhunds. Pick what you like.

btw. i own showline bitch. and she will work at SG level for real, but compared to those dogs i saw, we will make 440 in ipo 1 <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Who was the judge? You can PM me if you like.

It is in Croatia where i live.