VanCamp you are looking at both ends of a spectrum most dogs fall inbetween high drive and weak nerves. Heres another analogy. Goto a little leauge game. Look in the dug out and you will see 2000 dollars worth of bats. I'm not kidding. Mom and dad wants Billie to be a star and buys him a 200 dollar bat. the problem is Billie can't hit. If he can't make contact the bat is useless. Same thing if every dog was high drive and the owner doean't work it, it's useless. You might not have a nervous dog just one that bounces of walls.

milt

Chuck, you sick little monkey!

Richard is also right about one more thing, pains me to admit it, but anytime you start to get too much divergence of a breed in any direction you have lost the essence of that breed. I do defend myself by saying that the GSD's essence is that of a Working Dog. That is why I am so passionate about these posts.

Yea, O. K. Milt, I already said that you are right. I also think that people shouldn't have pets if they don't know what to do with them. That is one reason that there are so many problem dogs and owners.

you can say same about people and children. You could I wouldn't.

Working Definition?

JCHIII -

 Quote:

Like I have said on here before, my A/Shepherd with the exception of Argus Vom Aducht and Cora Vom Haus Jackobs in his ped loves to WORK!

With the exception of my current dog, I have owned all ASD's. In my experience, all of them loved to retrieve the ball but I don't think that makes the kind of working dog that we all want. I also had a Boston Terrier that was a freak with the ball and would retrieve it for 3 weeks straight until she dropped dead! Could she do serious work like PPD or PSD or Herding?

I probably could've trained all of these dogs to retrieve Canada's, Pheasant's or any bird, but to me that is totally differt work (I'm a hunter and don't discount this type of work, it's just different). All of my dogs loved to "work" but that doesn't mean that they were working dogs- they were missing the temperment and drives to do serious work!

Milt, why don't you ask Ed if he wants to put a section about having kids here on the board. If he does I'll post my plan for having to license people for having kids.

Nice going VanCamp now you are going to get me in trouble.

What else do you get with a working dog?
More than you can imagine! Comparing ASD's to working line GSD's is like comparing Apples and Oranges! Yes they are that different! You can read posts on this board or surf the internet and read all about ASD's vs. GDS's but seeing is believing! When you step into the presence of a real GSD it impacts you tremendously!
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Van Camp,

Didn't mean to start a conversation and walk out, but this little thing called work has been rearing it's ugly little head recently.

My point is that 2 things have been happening in the "working dogs". One the drives are going out of balance as Ellen pointed out. The problem as I see is that many of the working breeds are becoming so prey driven that they can't function as a family member (Wouldn't put them out with sheep either, they would worry them to death. They can't seem to help themselves and control their prey drive in the presence of their prey object.). Others are becoming so defensive they are tough to control, same thing with rank in some dogs. There have always been different levels of drives in different breeds, but the breeds were basicly fairly balanced. That is changing. The Mals are geting to be off the chart with prey drive. There are lines of the GSD's that are getting to be the same way. Other lines af GSD are so rank that they are very difficult to deal with. Same in the Giant Schnauzer, Dobes are just losing all the drives. The Rotts I have seen seem to be holding fairly stable. By having this happen the Show breeders are attempting to calm the drives down and going too far the other way. This limits the markets for dogs on both sides. If the dogs were to maintain their balance they would function better in all situations as they were intended.

The other problem I see is the conformation in some of the "working" dogs is going down hill. They are starting to blend into a "generic dog". In addition to that in many cases the conformation is limiting the ability to work. When I was looking for a working line Giant I could only find dogs with very poor conformation. They didn't even have all 4 feet pointing the same direction. The other thing I see is "cow hocked" dogs. This type of problem will limit the dogs stamina and abilty to drive with their legs. The size and head structures are changing also. The conformation "type" has changed in breeds over the years. When we had our first GSD from German Lines he was a working weight of 135#. That was the prefered type at the time. Over the last 25 years the trend has been to smaller dogs. Right... Wrong... I don't know. It depends on what you want to do with the dog. If the primary goal is dog sports as they are presently configured, most will favor a smaller dog. The type of work I use my dogs for I prefer the larger size. In many breeds this is what the show people bring to the table. The notable excetion is the GSD in the US with the over angulation.

Yes the Dobe was breed as a gurd dog. You could make an argument that the Mastiff breeds were all based on dogs for man work. The dogs were used in combat with Roman and Assyrian Armies. As the various armies spread they left some of the dogs behind. They have been used as primarily Livestock Guardians. In this case most have not been a companion animal for people, but for their animals. Most a very large for fighting other predators. Many breeders of these dogs recomend the dogs not even be socialized with people.

Most of the dogs currently used as protection breeds did protect the herd/flock, but that was not their primary job. Often there was one LGD dog with the herd and the herding dogs were used to move the animals and to be companions for the Farmer/Shepherd. It was this level of companionship that created protection work. If all you want is a big nasty for keeping people away, the Mastiff Breeds are much better at it. If you read the description of most of the current protection breeds companionship is a strongly desired chacteristic.

Compition in the dog sports and the show ring seem to be driving the problems. The idea that there is a best is the issue. Operating from this base people are tending to breed for extremes. Extreme prey drive, extreme rank drive, extreme size, extreme angulation in the GSD for show, ect.... None of these endeavors was ever intended as an end point for a dog. People decided there could be a best and strived to work for it. The problem is it is always subjective. So there is no such thing as the best. As much as I hear the German GSD extolled here I have a question, Why are German PD's now importing dogs from Holland and moving to Mal's for their PSDs? Any time you look at working for a purpose other than what the breed was intended for that there become problems in a breed.

Richard I hear what you are saying, but I still disargee with SOME of the BS that you have posted.

I think I should start my own Utility Breed Registration body here in the US. Call it the VC-UBR. Not breed specific, but work specific. With my own working tests and conformation requirments. You want in at the ground level Richie? Anybody else?