This is making perfect sense to me. Just like the Irish coat pattern has been preferred by show breeders of Siberian huskies for generations, therefore many show breeders shun pie balds more than ever but the mushers like them because the mushers WORK their dogs. It is not the genes responsible for the color that are to blame it is the selection process that has taken place. Incidentally, in Siberian huskies pie bald and solid white are both color PATTERNS, not colors. A solid white Siberian is gentically black & white, grey & white, red & white, etc. which accounts for it's having either black points or liver colored points. Irish pattern is dominant over neck marked, neck marked over splash, spalsh over pie bald and pie bald over white. With each pattern the distance between the markings increases with the most extreme distance resulting in a solid white looking dog - because the markings are so spread out the dog is not large enough to display them. So, a solid white colored Siberian is true only in effect. Not all breeds are effected in this way. I wonder if white in the GSD is a color or a color pattern? At any rate color or color pattern both are caused by resessive genes.

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Scott, I have not been in Slovakia for about 6 years now. I never seen a White shepherd finish ZVV/SVV but it could have changed since. I have seen too many White shephards beeing kicked out of trials.
That is why I set my opinion on what I saw. As I wrote before could change, I just haven't came across white one that excelled in protection. But I also came across GSD that had NO prey drive, zero.

I would agree that VERY few white GSD's are suitable for use in SchH/ZVV/SVV type sports or as police patrol dogs. I was referring to use as SAR dogs or Detection dogs, primarily. Again, it all depends on the individual dog.

But as a general rule, white GSD's aren't found in working circles because of the reasons John states.

John Minaldo wrote: "It would be sad indeed to think that in such a high risk area, dogs incapable of doing the work were being relied upon to protect the public."



That's an interesting comment. Not to scare the crap out of you, but if I had to take a quess. . . I'd estimate that about 30%-50% of the dogs in service today around the country are not of the quality that they should be.


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Well, scare me, no. But, if what you say is true than it is too bad.

You should be afraid. . .you should be very afraid.





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VC, I think those numbers are just about spot on. At least in my experience.