That is a damn good question Laura Miller.

When most of us are talking "work" I think we are talking about a dog that is capable of real life protection work. Police service, personal protection, as well as schutzhund and herding. It pains me to say it but a schutzhund title does not a working dog make. It has to do with how you train a dog. You can very easily put a shutzhund title on a dog using only his prey drive, working on his own field, etc, etc. That is what happens with most German show line dogs. They do not have the nerve or the other aggressions needed for engaging a hostile and dangerous man in combat.

I also have to say that there are SOME German show line dogs that have the ability, but not very many when looking at the whole.

They are mostly prey dogs that lack the necessary nerve to do real work.

Still, when comparing them to the American Lines they are a million times better because of Schutzhund, Herding, and the SV. Of course there is no similar test of ability in the AKC shows.

Todd - OK, me and statistics don't get along but I THINK this is right: you should get at least 83% sables and possibly 100%. The parent with two sable grandparents definitely carries one allele for sable (since he/she is sable) and carries either a second allele for sable from the other grandparent OR any one of the other agouti alleles if one of the grandparents was heterozygous sable. The parent who had one sable and one black grandparent is easier. That dog carries one sable allele and one black allele. So you have:

parent 1 = S/S or S/?
parent 2 = S/B
(S=sable, B=black, ?=another agouti allele like bicolor, saddle, or black)

So you make a grid, parent 1's possible alleles on the left side, parent 2's alleles across the top. I put S1 and S2 to represent that parent 1 definitely has one sable allele and possibly a second sable allele or else the ? allele.

S B

S1 S S
S2 S S
? S ?

So if I did this right, each pup has a 5 out of 6 chance of being a sable pup or 100% chance of being sable if parent 1 carries two sable alleles. Was that totally confusing????

Ok, I should have previewed that post - I lost all the spacing on my grid. Let's try again.

...... S ..... B
S1 ...S.....S
S2 ...S.....S
? .....S.....?

Not great, but better. Top row are parent 2's alleles, left column is parent 1's possible alleles. The results for each combination are in the middle.

And VanCamp - there you go again, thinking! I'll bet you dinner with our friend that sable is dominant! <g> Check out Inheritance of Coat Color by Little, or the more recent Willis books - Genetics of the Dog or The Genetic History of the German Shepherd, or Practical Genetics for Dog Breeders (I think that's the name of the third one). I've got all three, want to borrow one????

to me what matters most in my dogs is not what they look like but rather their health, longetivity, character and working ability. unfortunately whether it be working or show lines it would seem that many breeders are focusing more on making money than focusing on maintaining the purpose of the dog (as in what the dog's working purpose). Working lines and show lines can go to the extreme side of things. A balance between the two would be nice but unlikely. What will we have in 30 years from now? I would like to see GSDs conform closer to what von Stephanix wanted in a GSD. What he focused on was versatile working ability not beauty. If one looks at some of the early GSDs they look like a totaly different dog. Overall the working lines come closer to what the creater of the GSD wanted in a dog. As for sables = working lines and black and tan = showlines, were the eastern european stock not mostly sables while the west german stock black and tan?
This working/showline split is also seen in other breeds as well such as Labrador retrievers.
With the Labs there were "field labs",or "show labs". My yellow lab was a English import and was a cross between show lines and field (working) lines. Just like AKC shepherds are different so are English labs from American labs. For a Lab to be titled in England he was required to also have hunting titles (going by memory for this was back in the early 1990 I aquired a yellow English lab). My Lab did well in show as well as obtained his "master hunter" title and excelled in everything including schutzhund. With labs there was also a tendency to associate color with ability.yellow labs being show and black being for field work.
My point being that show vs working, color indication type is not isolated to just GSD but to other breeds as well. When I was searching for the type of lab I wanted it took almost a year to find one that would be fine in shows but also be able to work in the field. What I ended up with was a cross between the two types from a breeder whose mission as far as breeding was to produce dogs that would do both. As for my GSD I was more interested in working ability than anything else. He is still not what I was exactly looking for but he is closer to what I wanted than other GSDs I have had.
Just my .002

cross breeding show lines with working lines is
shit breeding. this has been tried by many a breeder
and always ends with poor results.

75 posts in 3 days. Wow! At some point this will have to break off into seperate threads. But for now...

Hey SchH3FH2! I think I'll take Vinces advice and take this color stuff to another thread. Meet me there to see my slammin' response.

The original question was about breeding the show lines with working lines. Moreover, I believe the foundation to the question to be why one would do such a thing.

True, there has been a TERRIBLE polarization in our breed. It is my opinion, and I'm sure VanCamp will, in his special way, tell me to "shove it", that this gap should be mended. That's what I like about the guy and perhaps we have something to learn from him; dispense with the euphamistics / PC crap and become passionate once again about what is important to the breed.

If there is fault or blame to be placed for the result of the deterioration of the working temperment in show stock, it should hang on the SV show judges. Not including the ACK intentionally because it, as organization in philosophy and function, is so screwed up in what they think is the "standard" for the GSD has, in fact, made it unrecognizable to a real fancier of the WHOLE and TOTAL DSH. The SV judges have pointed the breed and breeders in the direction they are and are headed. They have established what type wins and thusly what is desireable. Ultimately, they have guided us to the shit situation we are in now and have alienated any dog with real character, evident at this year's Sieger Show in LV.

Form does follow function and the converse is also true. Is it not the DUTY of those of us breeding to produce what was established by Cpt. Max to be the standard? He did say that, in the end, HIS dog should be a working dog. If one were to look at the pictures of the first DSHs, it is difficult to tell the difference between Horand and the present day Malinios with the exception of color and I can't imagine many of us finding that acceptable. The product we have today is the product of human induced evolution.

Why can't a working dog be pleasant to the eye? Does this not come full circle to the question of is beauty in the eye of the beholder? To paraphrase a modern American philosopher, Pretty is as Pretty does, in my opion because the work comes first. This should not beconfused with a total abandonment of conformation.

Our obviuos preoccupation with extremes seems to be far removed from the intentions of Cpt. Max.

Just for the record, I prefer sables and I don't plan to "campaign" my Otis grandson for a "championship" or VA. My goal is to have him go SG with a KKL1a in conjunction with being a well estabished and accomplished working dog, first.

My question is this; do we even bother with trying to build the dog of " the golden middle" or do we continue to perpetuate the extremes?

I was so glad to read AZ trooper's last remarks. Got this same thread on another board started. I couldn't find out where my lil Arek bred girl got her looks from until I found a picture of her great great grandmother, Fengavom Kirchental. She is built exactly like the really old style GSD. Good or bad, she is very agile and is starting to really come around as a working girl. And not only are the SV judges to blame, but breeders, which I am not, need to start presenting working dogs to them. Glad to know I am not the only one that is frustrated that both sides have gone to extremes. CH

Hey Trooper, you can shove it right up your . . .

NOT.

What you have said is very close to what I believe, but I don't think the solution lies in bringing the two together. I think to fix the problem we should stay away from the SV show dogs as a whole. What should happen is that working people should breed better working dogs. Breed with confirmation in mind as well as working ability. It may be just another branch of the GSD tree, but when all those people out there see what they are missing (kick ass working dogs) then they will come to the light. I don't think the SV show dogs have good confirmation. If you take a look at what most of the working line dogs look like, THAT is what good confirmation should be. That should be our goal. Good movement, sound body, good teeth-coat-eyes etc, and BAM!- BIG TIME WORKING ABILITY.

Crossing the working lines back to either the ASS lines or the SV show lines is a mistake. It will only weaken the working lines both physically and mentally. Breed the working lines and make the others turn their heads.

"Wow, now that was a courage test! I thought the dog was gonna kill the helper in that bark and hold! I kinda like they way those dogs look, no weird slope butt. Look at all that pigment?!?! They seem to move better too- jump higher, run faster and longer."

"I want a dog like that!!!" "Excuse me sir, but who is your breeder?"

The slow, but unavoidable, end to the current show line dogs.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> I can dream can't I? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />