Tara, In a lot of ways show breeders and working breeders may have similar methods but the goals and the results are way different.

Show breeders breed dogs for a certain "look", a dog could have that "look" and yet be the health and genetic equivalent of Typhoid Mary. A show breeder can breed lots and lots of frogs and still stay in business as along as they occasional produce a dog that LOOKS like a prince.

Unlike a show breeder, the working breeder can only risk a small amount of health issues in pursuit of a good working dog. A working dog is measured by real life activities that usually can not be done by a ill dog (no matter how good looking).

A pet breeder is like any breeder of livestock, if the livestock aren't healthy or don't breed healthy pups, they go under. A successful pet breeder needs healthy dogs that are generally acceptable to the public.

That’s the difference; the show breeder can tolerate breeding dogs with all sort of problems and still stay in business. To make it worse, their dogs are not measured against any real life criteria. On the contrary, they are measured in a way to promote freaks and extremes. In the worse cases that produce animals that can not live or even reproduce with out the assistance of man kind. In the show world, there is no punishment for making bad breeding decisions there are only rewards for those that can produce dogs with extreme features.

Thomas, that clears it all up perfectly for me. Thank you for the time you took to answer my post. I am trying to become a more knowledgable and responsible dog owner.

What guidelines do people normally use for not breeding a dog? I mean if you have a great working dog, but the dog exhibits one negative trait out of several other factors, do you not breed the dog? Another seperate example would be if you were a breeder and one of your breeding pairs pups ended up with an ailment, i.e. thyroid problem or epilepsy... what should the breeder do if neither of the parents showed this problem... do they keep breeding? Try to figure out which dog passed this genetic flaw or what? I ask this particular question, because my my male, which I have altered, has seizures and no cause could be found with the tests. There is the slight chance he got bonked on the head hard enough at some point to cause this problem, but from what I have read, idiopathic epilepsy is suspected to be genetic... in the case of the breeder that sold this dog, should they quit breeding the two parents, or what?

its an interesting question and the answer is not very simple. The first thing you must understand is the quickest and most effective way to destroy a breed's health and capabilities is by reducing the gene pool. With that in mind let’s look at your dog's seizure example.

Say all of a sudden vet medical group came up with a new genetic test they could sell to "responsible" breeders that would tell whether or not dogs carried a propensity towards seizures.
With in a short period of time every breed club would declare it unethical NOT to test for those seizures. Breeding dogs that tested positive would be declared unethical too. On the surface it sounds good, but chances are that such wholesale cullings would do more damage than good. Yes, you might reduce that particular cause of the seizures, but you might also reduce the gene pool enough to cause other problems and/or different types of seizures. So you end up with dogs that still have seizures but also other health problems, plus you have a much smaller gene pool to try and fix the problem. I have a strong suspicion that that very thing is happening today with Hip dysplasia and elbow tests, especially in breeds that have low incidences of dysplasia but nonetheless, under the guise of “ethics”, are having “non-excellent” rated dogs culled from the breeding pool.. The Basenjis went through a very similar issue several years back, and I will put a link to that issue below if you are interested.

But in terms of how to address these issues, a good breeder weighs all of a dog's plus's and minuses. If the plus's outweigh the minuses and the resulting dogs are better than at least 50% of the other members of the breed then they should be bred. If the breeding has good potential but also has great risk, then the resulting dogs (and probably even their pups) should be isolated from the breeding program until it is clear that you actually got the plus's and not the minuses. And even if you do all that, chances still are that some thing unexpected will happen, and that is why it is important to have a set of dogs available with a broader gene pool to fix any problems that may have popped up.

In that light, check out what happened with the Basenjis.

http://www.jabed.com/genes.htm

Thomas, good article. I see that in some cases the small gene pool is more dangerous than one dog with epilepsy! Thanks for clearing this up for me. Now that I have learned this, I am wondering if you would mind looking at the fear biters and shy dog section of the forum... my female is neither, but I explained a situation in that section that leads me to believe her nerves are thin and I dont know if genetic personality traits fall into the category we have been discussing... health issues in a small gene pool vs genetic personality issues in a small gene pool, do you treat them the same by weighing out what is best overall in a breed, especially when the pool is kiddie sized! I do not know if I will breed my female and will not breed her until I learn a whole lot more, but I would like to know if I should definitely alter her based on the scenerio I wrote about in the other section. Thank you very much for all the information you have provided me. I have been going through Ed's articles and these forums for awhile now to try and understand how to raise my dogs properly and ethically. I did some homework prior to getting my dogs, but I am obviously still learning.

yes, it is true that a small gene pool is more dangerous than one dog with epilepsy. However, that still does not make it good idea to breed a dog with a problem. When you have a dog with an obvious issue, you have to find a positive that is at least twice as important as that negative to even begin to make a case for breeding. And, it is certainly not something for a first time breeder to deal with. Even people who start off with the best dogs possible, still run into problems. That is why it is important not to start off behind the 8 ball.

I did read the thread about your dog and what it learned from the 4th of July episode. It certainly sounds like a learned behavior to me. The question is, has she become neurotic as a result. Its not bad that a dog learns to be rightfully scared of something. But if it turned neurotic over the issue, that is a sign of bad nerves. In either case it probably is not the kind of dog that is going to make it as a police dog (but that is best discussed with the police dog experts). As to whether or not to breed, if the dog is not neurotic, the answer depends on what you want out of your breeding program. In that light, when you sell the pups from that breeding, you should tell the potential buyers that the mother did learn to be afraid of fireworks etc. If giving that info to the buyers makes you cringe, then you should not breed the dog.

Hope that helps

Thomas

Thomas,

I agree with what you are saying about being behind the 8 ball... the dog that had the seizures has been altered. He is a sweet boy, I feel he is a better family pet than hunter or guardian. We may dabble in dog sports, since I have finally found someone in town that knows about Sch, but any training that takes place in dog sports will just be for better obedience in my dogs and not competition.

I think the problem with my female could have been learned as well. She is a little sharp at times, but rarely seems scared of anything. She was a very confident pup. My comment on training the K9 dogs was not meant to be interpreted as my dogs going into that work, I was just curious as to how they train the dogs to be around a good deal of gunfire, gunfire that may be present on a good day of bird hunting. I will be working her as well in some of the aspects of dog sports and see how she does. Before I even consider her for any type of breeding. I want to ensure she has enough pluses to dim this minus. Who knows, if this behavior was learned, perhaps I can train it out of her, as some people have suggested. Thanks again for your advice. I feel more knowledgable regarding the whole show dogs vs. working dog vs family dog issue. One last question on this topic, overall their are really 4 categories, I mean you have the show dog breeders, pet quality breeder, sporting dog breeders and working dog breeder? Or are the sporting dog breeders and working dog breeders interchangable? From what I have read by Ed, a sporting dog will not likely do protection dog work, perhaps I misread what he was saying. So if I am understanding properly, sporting dogs are just for the sporting rings and are not likely used in real world working situations... Do sporting dog people still sell their pups to working dog people?

One last question on this topic, overall their are really 4 categories, I mean you have the show dog breeders, pet quality breeder, sporting dog breeders and working dog breeder? Or are the sporting dog breeders and working dog breeders interchangable?

From what I have read by Ed, a sporting dog will not likely do protection dog work, (perhaps I misunderstood what he was saying). So if I am understanding properly, sporting dogs are just for the sporting rings and are not likely used in real world working situations... Do sporting dog people still sell their pups to working dog people? If so, is this because of the sporting dogs functionality and propensity to possibly performing as a working dog? Or is the factor that the show dogs are not proven in real world situations a reason for not placing their pups with real world training, and only working dog pups should be used for real world work?

I'm not going to speak for any one, but regarding sport dog as working dogs, I think what is ment is that some people will sell a sport dog having the people purchasing the dog thinking they bought a real personal protection dog, or a police dog. A lot of times, people not familar with dogs will see a sport dog (schutzhund) bit the sleeve, and think they are seeing a real personal protection dog, which is not the case in most instances.

A dog is a dog. You have the qualities and charateristics in the dog that it will have for it's life when it is an adult. (2-3 years old). Some dogs are better then other dogs in drive, aggression, and character. These dogs are found in sport and in practical work. The same can be said about the dogs that are not so good too. Sport breeders are mostly working line breeders, but I think most breeders would not differentiate themselves that way. Sport or Schutzhund dogs are trained for points. They train for a specific rutine on the filed that is specific and requires accuracy. You can take a schutzhund dog and with some good training make it a police dog or a personal protection dog, but again the underlying traits need to be there. Not every schutzhund dog is can do that type of work. Schutzhund is to be used as a breed suitability test. Currently the titles have changed to VPG which means working dog versitility test in english. I agree that alone schutzhund can't be the only tool used to measure a dogs worth as breed stock. It helps, but I think what most people don't realise is that the dogs that win 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are not the best GSD. More often the dogs that place 15-35 in say the BSP are the best dogs IMO. Sure we all want to win, and have the #1 dog, but often the dogs that have deep character, good blanced drives, and bring a seriousness to the work don't always score the most points in the sport.
To conclude, working dog breeders and sport breeder are one in the same, just a difference in training and use for the dogs. Both can use dogs that are not that good, and both can use dogs that are excellent. Neither has an advantage over the other, and IMO most sport breeders are working line breeders, and vice versa.

This topic is fascinating to me. I'm just learning about the differences in type of the same breed. It makes sense to me that a larger gene pool makes for a healthier breed. If the different types (leaving out the crippled Am. show dogs)are bred exclusively in type then aren't you risking seperate breeds forming, all with pedigrees that resemble an arrow? Come to think of it isn't that how we got the Am show GSD in the first place?