Another NC Member!

Selena van Leeuwen said:

Hi stacia, welcome!

Well if you lived for so long in Germany you´ll know how the German sporters will react :wink: (same as the dutch i´m afraid )

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I am curious... do Germans think their own show lines are incapable of doing the work? Or do SV supports have one opinion and the DVG supports have the opposite? :?

If I understand it all correctly… and please feel free to jump in and correct me if I am wrong… the pretty dogs compete in the SV and the working lines compete in the DVG. The show lines lack the intensity of the working line and the working line lack the conformation of the show lines.

I have heard that the SV is one of the largest Schutzhund organization in the world and that the competitions are nearly identical to the DVG. So where does all the negativity come from if the SV is just as popular as the DVG? Isn’t it just a mater of preference? Or is it an East West thing? To me… it seems equivalent to saying all Blondes are dumb and we know they're not.

Sorry for hijacking your post Stacia… I guess I just don’t understand where all the negativity regarding show lines come from? Is it just a US sentiment?

Mods… If this belongs in a new thread feel free to move it.

LOL I'm used to this conversation!

I grew up in Germany and my dog carries only SV papers. From what I can tell you there is sentiment among German working line breeders that the show dogs aren't good for the sport. And there is sentiment among the show breeders that the working lines don't conform to the GSD standard.

In our experience, most Germans actually own a dog of show lines (your standard saddle black and tan) and most breeders breed this type of dog. The Bundessieger show is more popular than the BSP, though there are GSD enthusiasts who frequent both.

I could have had a working dog, and I saw several litters. I didn't like what I saw. The dogs lacked, IMO, the grace and presence of a shepherd. One very well known breeder tried to pull one over on us \"dumb Americans,\" as well. We told him what we were looking for in a dog, and we knew how much he generally charged for a puppy through others who had purchased from him. He quoted us a price of 800 euros, which was about 200 euros above his norm. When we told him we'd give him 650, he laughed and told us he had a dog he'd sell us for that much. He brought out a NERVE BAG of a dog. I have never seen a shepherd so skittish! I pet her for a minute (she really was a beauty, just not suited for SchH at all), and then laughed at him and told him to have a good day! Besides this issue, when we went to see his litter the dam cowered away from us, laid her ears back, and became submissive. Her pups were only 3 weeks old at the time! She shouldn't have been letting perfect strangers near them.

Then we decided to look at some of the nearby show litters (we were very good friends with the man who did hte ear tattoos, so had the skinny on promising litters ready for sale in the area). I looked at one and didn't like what I saw. Banana backs, skittish dam, puppies seemed to lack drive. Uh uh. Then we saw Achilles' litter. Dam out with her puppies wrestling, dam and grand dam with perfectly straight backs. I got too close to the puppy enclosure while talking to hubby -- the next thing I know Donna (the dam) is doing a running bite straight for my ARM! She grabbed it and shook, released, and then barked until I moved away. HOT DOG!!!! I picked the best (IMO) male from taht litter right then and there LOLOL! I had those bruises for weeks!!!!!!!! Thank god it was her and not the grande dam, Hera: she's SchH 3/IP 1 and was quite a scary bitch in her day...Donna only made her SchH 1...

I think what's been lost in GSD breeding is balance. Just as a line can be bred too closely on looks with no emphasis on working ability, resulting in nerve bag dogs who can do more than look good, a breeder can also focus too much on drive and end up with dogs who no longer resemble shepherds, or who can't function as companions because of their exceptionally high drives. Neither, IMO, is a proper GSD. These dogs are supposed to be a \"jack of all trades.\"

Now as for SV and SchH...I can only speak for the clubs in the Wurzburg/Kitzingen area as that was where we lived. There were 3 in Kitzingen, 2 in Wurzburg. The first we took Achilles to for puppy classes was run by a K9 handler who favored Czech adn DDR lines. He looked at our dog's pedigree and told us we were wasting our time. Even made a point of grabbing out a DDR puppy the same age as ours to show how much more drive he had. Imagine his surprise when our puppy pushed this one of hte way to grab the tug! Hee hee... The 2nd club was in a small town called Grosslangheim. The members regularly enrolled their dogs in the BSP; one of the ladies owned a dog who had taken 2nd in tracking a couple of years before at the competition. They were serious, out at the platz nearly every day. They readily accepted our \"worthless\" show dog and commented every time we brought him on how high his drives were and how focused he was for his age. We never got any sort of prejudice or resentment from this club -- except the first time we went and were told that if we weren't serious, don't come back LOL.

I can honestly say, though, that we've encountered more prejudice against our dog's pedigree here in the US than we did in Germany. I'm not sure what to make of that...

USA, DVG, WDA all accept working or show lines, although they (show lines) arent well represented because most, not all, lack the character to do it.
WDA is the working side of the GSDCA, which is the parent club of the AKC GSD. Many people trash the WDA for this reason. It still boils down to the individual club, not the organization it belongs to. ANY breed can compete at club level in the USA or the WDA. It's only the Regional and national trials that are limited to GSD only.
DVG is open to ALL breeds/mixed breeds, at any level of competition, although one DVG club in our area will pretty much snub anything but a GSD.
I belong to a WDA club. We have GSDs, Pits, Rottys, Dobe, Presas, American Bulldogs, and an Austrailian Cattle Dog. The huge majority of our GSDs are working line. Two of our GSDs have some showline( West German) background. One is a nice pet. The other is a very serious dog.
I've talked with National/international trial helpers that will tell you that their level of challenge to the dog will vary depending on the type of trial they do. SV won't have the intensity that some other trials may have.
Good or bad, I think that's the same scenario with Club, Regional, National level trials. JMHO!
Also JMHO, but the American show line GSDs are WAY down the line for chances at a dog that could compete at a high level, both physically and tempermentally.
This comment isn't ment to trash the American show lines. It's just a personel observation made from years of all kinds of dog watching.

Thanks Bob for that detail explanation. How does one define an American line GSD?

When I bought Marsha... initially it was purely as a family companion with the hopes that she would possess a naturally protective instinct that the GSD of years past were known for. My first experience with a GSD was as a small child when my dad ended up with a retired war dog when he came back from Vietnam. I remember that dog was the best family and protection dog and he was beautiful to boot. :lol: :lol:

When I started searching for a GSD, I myself DID NOT trust the gene pool in the US... due to all the horror stories I had heard about nerves, hips, and temperament etc… As well as the fact that the AKC has no control over the gene pool here to insure the integrity of breed and that anyone can register a litter of GSD even if the bitch jumped the fence three times during her heat. :roll:

So I went to Germany to buy my dog... and I bought the SchH3 titles and KKL1 rating because to me it signified that that this dog probably had endured enough testing to minimize my risk of getting a shitty dog. Plus her pedigree wasn’t all that bad. :lol:

Please bear in mind that at the time... I had no interest in Schutzhund nor knew anything about the sport. The only thing I knew about Schutzhund was that it translated to \"protection dog” which bolstered my reason for buying in Germany. It was not until I got my girl here that I fell in love with her and her sport and my obsession was born.

I guess what I am saying is…. I went to Germany to buy a rock solid GSD because I did not trust the integrity of the breed here in America. Is this the same reason the breed has gotten such a bad rap over the years? And are the German showlines considered any better then the American lines or are they all considered equally as bad?

Either way… I love my dog and that isn’t going to change how I feel about her… I am just trying to understand why so many people *dog* the showlines.

To be completely honest… when I started looking of a dog… I didn’t know there was a “showline” vs “working line” They were all GSD to me. Some were prettier then others. Now I find myself fascinated with a sport that seems to judge a dog before ever testing …

Hey… is that’s doggy racism :idea: :?: