Originally posted by Richard Cannon:
Dave, I think you kind of opened yourself to the question and I would like to know the answer myself. What would make the bitch worth $15,000....
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Richard, I think you would find it difficult to purchase a solid, tough Sch3FH bitch that is the progeny of several top Bundesieger competitors, has a ZW of 79 and is in excellent shape-- and only 4 years old-- for much less. Otherwise, I suspect that we would all have one.

Of course money isn't everything. And, of course there are exceptions. But I suspect that the individual with the extra $15,000 is going to tend to get a nicer titled bitch than the one who only has $1,500.

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Originally posted by Dave Lilley:

Chris, no offense but why do I need your opinion? I'm happy with my 5 month old pup and the pups from her first litter were awesome. She was bred in Belgium to Troll v Haus Melinda and whelped her first litter here about 18 months ago.

No offense taken. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The only reason I tried to give you my opinion is due to the fact you tried to pin an opinion on me that I did not have.

Dave wrote: If you want to go on believing that a $1,500 titled female is likely to be as good as a $15,000 to $18,000 titled bitch thats ok.
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As far as the $15,000 bitch goes. This bitch has only proven she can make pups. If she throws bad hips is she still worth the cash? Maybe this litter is the best GSD litter that has ever been breed, but she only clicks with Troll, but when she is bred with to other lines you end up with litters of pets. It has been known to happen. One litter does not a Umsa Bungalow make.

What about the idea that schutzhund may be outdated as a good measure of breed worthiness? So much time and energy has to be invested into working for the points, and often becomes a matter of handler skills more so than a good way of assessing a dog's genetics in terms of drives, especially fight drive, since fight drive is not neccessarily needed to earn a title. It seems that schutzhund has become primarily an obedience event. Of course, it has become very commercial, so it has many advocates who are in the dog business who tend to profit from it. And other than a herding title, a schutzhund title is all the SV will accept. I think it would be interesting to see the SV accept other working titles such as PSA which focus more on a dog's ability to handle stress and surprises in the protection work, as well as looking for fight drive. To me, obedience "drive" is not what the GSD breed is losing, but rather hardness and fight drive, which the SV standards are not selecting for. Ed said it himself, the the BSP dogs are "shit dogs" because they get the points, but are not necessarily the best producers and are not the toughest, hardest dogs. The tracking in schutzhund is very time consuming and is just another obedience exercise. How many GSDs from good working bloodlines can't follow a foot track? If tracking is a requisite to assess a dog's working capacity, shouldn't it be done via TTD, where the dog really enjoys the work and it is more natural to the dog? Do we want to rate dogs as protective that only bite a sleeve that doesn't look like anything a real "badguy" would present to a dog?

I think the question about the cost of a bitch thus grading her breed level is misunderstood. I will be the first to aggree that a top titled bitch is great and should be bred. A big part of the value is the training and the bitch herself. She has proven herself as a great worker and someone will get or should get many years competion from her that will bring them alot of joy. However this does not make her a proven breeding female until such time she is bred. Now the flip side is that the guy in the States that bred a bitch to a nice male kept a pup raised her and x-rayed her and bred her 4 times to diffrent studs and her pups look great; this bitch is by far a more valuable breeding female then perhaps the more costly bitch, but will most likley not sell for a lot as she herself is not titled. I guess the only way would be if she produced a few Schutzhund Champs. I think we need to look at our requirments for breeding.
My point is titles do not make a bitch a better producer, only a better trained dog, that has throughly proved herself on a field. An example of this a bitch that is in America now that was bred twice but never produced and the stud was healthy. She sold for $15,000.00 as a competion bitch and she is great, but she may not be a broad bitch. Someone could buy a bitch for $2000.00 and get a super brood bitch depending on where they are getting the dog from. I know of dogs that were priced at $2500.00 and when the Gemran guy worked the dog a bit the price jumped to $10,000.00 So cost does play a role but it is not everything;that is a proven fact.

We all no that any TITLE means little in and of itself. But might it be meaningful that an experienced handler/trainer thought a bitch worthwhile enough to take the time / effort of putting a Sch3 and an FH on her?

It seems that few trainers take the time to put advanced titles on bitches unless they have fairly decent working potential.

Dave,
I'm sure that this is a super working bitch. That I have little doubt about. But as a brood bitch she is relatively unproven.

Chris, why do you insist on limiting the discussion to one particular dog?

The question is whether or not you think that there are many mediocre or poor quality Sch3FH bitches out there?

One thing I always do when looking at a pedigree is see how many of the bitches are Sch3...on the premise that most people will not train a weak nerved bitch to that level. Do you think this is meaningful?

And now we come to the point. The bitch's value is based on several things depending on the purpose she was purchased for. If she was purchased as a brood bithch and has never had a litter, then the purchase is a shot n the dark. If the bitch is titled and only 1 in 4 of her ancesters is titled I think the value is over stated. By contrast if every male in the line is titled at SChIII and whatever else demonstrates their value and the bitch isn't titled but has thrown 2 good litters she would be of more value as a brood bitch. The price is partially dependant on the purpose that the dog is purchased for. This is why lines are so important.

Many people don't trial their brood bitches because it shortens their breeding career, the same thing hapens in some show lines. Often the bitch will be shown to some points to establish her conformation and then retired to be bred to champion males. If she finishes quickly so much the better. Same goes for training. There is a limit to the price that can be obtained for puppies. Once you hit that limit, you will not get any more for the pups. The males can continue to compete and breed at the same time.

If the line is all titled males the likelyhood is greater that the required genetics will be there than if only the brood bitch is titled and there is little or nothing behind that. The untitled bitch may therefore sell for less, but have a better genetic background for the purpose of breeding than the titled dog.

So if nearly all of the bitches in the pedigree are Sch3 is this good, bad, or irrelevant?

Good thing. The more the merrier. The original discussion was that the bitchs in the US are mediocre because they aren't titled. My point is for breeding purposes, you have to look at the entire pedigree not just one or two dogs. If there are "good" males being produced, how can all/most of the bitches be mediocre?

To me the problem isn't that the bitch's are poor but that most of the dogs are poor. The other part of the problem is that since protection sports aren't that popular many good dogs are not trialed while poor dogs are trialed and then used for breeding based on the title, even if the title is questionable. Another part of the problem is the "cult" of all things European. "If the dog is an import it MUST be better... someone went to the trouble to bring it all that way!!!". I don't trial in Schutzhund, our group trials in NAPD. Every trial the GSD people show up and explain how much better their dogs are than the dogs in the trial. They just never enter any of them. I have seen some of the dogs from the most vocal folks, and their dogs aren't that great and the reason that they aren't entered is they would fold under the pressure of the trial. Some of them have SCH titles and all of them are being bred based on those titles.