I have used the comparison of dog breeding to making bread. One thing for sure is that it's more of an art than a science. To do it right takes either luck and/or experience (usually both).

With this said I respectfully disagree on the comments about line breeding on Grief. I do agree that Mink can cause some hectic behavior. My Mink son filled his mouth with my body parts more than I care to remember - but I never felt that it was a result of anger. With this said - I don't think the issues with Mink came down through Grief.

Throughout my breeding career I have tried to line breed on Grief. If there were any close relatives that I liked still alive I would continue to do so. I still have frozen semen on my Natan Busecker Schloss - a Gief grandson. It is not for sale for any amount of money.

Grief threw big deep solid grips, I dont know a bloodline today that I can go to for these kinds of grips. Natan is stillone of the best dogs I have ever owned.

for those who are interested and have access to the gsd euro board on yahoo, msg#17539 by bruce brisson discusses the attributes of two sons of greif: sagus and arthus. i found this discussion fascinating, thus my comment on the careful use of greif (as with any sire) it makes a difference what they are bred to. greif had but one line to bert vh knufken, but his son arthus had two, which undoubtedly accounts for the differences between sagus and arthus. arthus being the grandsire of pike vd schafbachmuhle. i did err in say "greif's nerves." that was an assumption on my part and wrong. i know better than to do that.

Patricia, I don't understand what you're saying?

well, several things went haywire on this thread. i got off topic for one thing. i began by discussing my experiences with the mink/link/fero question and ended up on another, totally unrelated dog.....sagus/greif and dingo linebred. i was not criticizing ed's dog and if i am reading natan's pedigree correctly, he is not even linebred, let alone sagus/greif linebred. he appears to have only one line to greif and therefor not even in the same bunch as the dogs i had indicated. i know and have trained with several siblings of my dog in question and their owners. we all experienced pretty much the same problems and the dogs exhibited very similar traits in character and temperament; those who were of the same litter as well as those who were in different litters. my error was in connecting the two dogs, sagus/greif. after re-reading the discussion on the other board, it became clear to me that linebreeding on greif by way of different dogs, would not produce the same results as i had seen in the sagus/greif. examples being mink and pike. i do still have concerns where the linebreeding involves sagus.....based on what i have experienced and the experiences of others, but once again - natan does not fall into this catagory, nor does otis or the peko haus dogs.

Otis was line bred on Greif.
Ed used Otis to breeed to several Natan daughters and Natan was a Greif grandson.
Ron Peko haus was a Greif grandson and was bred to Otis daughters and to Natan daughters.
The discussion was about breeding along Greif in part. If this isn't breeding along Greif I don't know what is.
Otis is in that catagory and it depends on which Peko Haus dog's you're looking at Patricia.
Though I'm not a big time breeder I have had some cursory involvement. I nabbed Otis for Ed when he became available, his pedigree was great and the dog showed awesome potential, he was a bit of a wreck due to what I considered poor police training and the department realized this and unloaded him since they didn't have the expertise to fix such a drivey dog with bad habbits.
I still raze Ed about not using Ron more. Hell, I have a Ron grnadson I just got from a friend at 9 months to rear for police work which is Greif linebred, Nice pup.
What I'm saying might sound critical to some when I say hectic but it is not really, just something to know and understand about. Carry linebreeding on Greif using progeny from Mink and I think you'll see drivey but hectic behavior. Better that than lazy cowlike critters. Now some might say it was Otis that did this but I've seen it through Lewis Malatesta stuff also. I saw it in his brother Lando. I'm not being critical just a critical thinker. Lando had a long career here catching criminals and finding dope and evidence for us, he had obtained a SchHI and a DPOI and worked until his mediocre hips made him retire (his hips were rated as still acceptable).

yup.....it sure is linebreeding on greif. that's not where the problem lies. i e-mailed v.c. privately with some other info i dug up on the net and arrived at the conclusion that everyone else already had.....you can linebreed on greif until the cows come home as long as no more than one line comes thru sagus. anyway, i've mucked up this thread too much already, so i'm outta here.