What do you think of this theory? Because of the amount of money involved, rules change in order to allow more dogs to title so that more can be sold. Newer trainers get into the business for money as opposed to the older, more traditional trainers that were in it for the love of the sport and the animals. The newer trainers take shortcuts and use "tricks" and get these dogs trained and titled at younger ages. These dogs are not as fully developed as they used to be. All of these factors may play into the so-called "decline" of the breed. It's starting to happen to other breeds also. We are starting to see younger and younger titled Malinois and Dutch Shepherds too. I've never personally imported a dog and I've only dealt with police training but I've been told by numerous trainers that there was a time when you rarely saw a Sch III or a IPO III or PH titled dogs that was less than 2 or 3 years old because of the amount of time that was devoted to thorough training. I understand that training methods have improved but the number of shortcuts taken have risen and some of the rules have "softened" to allow more dogs to title. The bottom line seems to be money!! The more I produce, the more I can sell. I could be way off track here but these are just my observations.

This is an interesting thread, but I think it would be a good idea to define what exactly is a “good dog”, something we can all agree on, regardless of what our area of interest is?

You're right, that hasn't been determined here. Personally, I'd say high drive (prey, fight, hunt, retrieve, play or social) confident, high energy, a little hardheaded and independant and very intense and possessive with his "toy". I'm talking about a working dog so it probably wouldn't make a good "pet" for the average dog fancier, it would be too "hyper". I've learned these dogs work best for dual purpose detector dogs.

Kelvin wrote:
"Personally, I'd say high drive (prey, fight, hunt, retrieve, play or social) confident, high energy, a little hardheaded and independant and very intense and possessive with his "toy"."

So far so good...

"I'm talking about a working dog so it probably wouldn't make a good "pet" for the average dog fancier, it would be too "hyper"."

Then you are talking about a sport dog, not a working dog.

A good working dog should be able to make a good "pet" (I prefer the word "companion"). A good working dog should not be too "hyper", but be able to channel his drives into something productive, whatever it may be--especially such a versatile dog as a GSD.

"I'm talking about a working dog so it probably wouldn't make a good "pet" for the average dog fancier, it would be too "hyper"."
I look at the average dog fancier as someone that has a dog that serves no purpose other than being a buddy. No formal OB. This would include most people in my neighborhood :-) They usually consider a dog suitable for sport/police work to be too "hyper". Most people I know (outside of dog trainers/handlers) never give their dogs any formal training outside of sit and maybe down/stay.

A good working dog should be able to make a good "pet" (I prefer the word "companion"). A good working dog should not be too "hyper", but be able to channel his drives into something productive, whatever it may be--especially such a versatile dog as a GSD.

I agree. My point was that if you don't channel that energy into something productive, that same dog will channel his energy himself into something less productive.

Do you include police dogs in the working dog or sport dog group?

By the way,the GSD is my favorite breed although the dog I currently work is a Dutchy.

You can look at this issue several different ways.
Is finding a good working GSD getting harder to find? Someone mentioned definition of a working GSD, also probably the dog market has risen dramatically over the last several years, many are breeding just for pets, breeding for show, breeding for work. Then every breeder has an opinion on what breeding with what, will bring out this and that.
Maybe we are getting more handlers / trainers / etc. who think they just know enough to ruin a good dog or as someone said earlier about a trainer, whatever dog they touched turned out to be a good dog........ maybe this person knew real dog training and understand and knew how to bring out the best of that dog OR knew what to look for in a dog.
Maybe instead of complaining about finding good dogs --------- maybe we ought to take a look at some of ourselves and see where we need to improve as a handler and/or trainer. Someone earlier mentioned about the age timeframe becoming younger for some titled dogs --- are we pushing the dogs to accomplish something too soon, if not, sounds like we have good dogs out there, titling younger than before??
I was told a long time ago...... lot of people can handle a trained dog....... not a lot of handlers can be made into a trainer. The longer I am around dogs and people, the more I find this to be true ---- myself included. Some have the knack for the training, many have the earned experience.
I do not say this to hurt anybody's feelings, but just to think about it.

 Quote:

Originally posted by Kelvin Alcox:
Do you include police dogs in the working dog or sport dog group?

Working dogs: police, military, herding, SAR, assistance, seeing-eye dogs.

I used to include sport dogs in this category, but I’m not sure anymore, not with the way things have been going in the sport lately and the kind of dogs that have been gaining in popularity for the last 5-6 years. Dogs with extreme drives, hard to control, handler-aggressive. I can appreciate good fight drive just like anyone else, but when one, as a handler, has to fight the dog every inch of the way--IMO, it is not a working dog. A good working dog should not be hard to train. Nor should it be easy to ruin--an excuse we hear so often: "he coulda been a great dog if the guy before me didn’t ruin him..."

i'm gonna quote al govednik, but not word for word....my memory isn't that good anymore. he says you learn more about dog training from a not so easy to train dog than you do an easy dog. so if you look at it that way, a difficult dog only serves to make you a better and more experienced trainer, handler or helper. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Patricia,

You are absolutely right--spoken from personal experience :rolleyes: . But as I grew older and more experienced, I realized that it is so much easier to train and achieve results if you start with the right material. Besides, the name of this thread is “good dog hard to find”, so let’s not turn it into “good trainer hard to find”--it’s been done enough already... Let’s concentrate on the dogs <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> .