Top GSD Showline Males Currently Prepotent For Protection - Page 7

Overall improvement for show lines in protection is not going to happen in the States or Germany. Dot, period. It is all lip service until the SV demands at least a legitimate club level interpretation of "pronounced." UScA is making small strides while WDA demonstrates little commitment to that standard. In lieu of this fact, top breedings will necessarily remain conformation potential first with a secondary consideration toward temperament (for some). Very few young dogs with working potential are ever then prepared for higher level competition where they can be fairly evaluated. And lastly, as Jim alluded, very few of my show line friends can evaluate accurately what they are seeing. Words like powerful and over the top bring specific meaning and expectations toward performance for high level schutzhund trainers like Jim. Yet, they are bantered about incessantly (and quite inaccurately) among many in the show crowd losing the speaker credibility within the schutzhund oriented community. Listen to Ballack's guarding for instance. While a very nice dog who scores well, he is neither powerful nor over the top. Having said that, I would proudly own, show, and breed him as he represents great improvement over the typical show line. Kevin Nance

And for Rass, to simply answer your question there is NO show line in the U.S. or Germany who could accurately be evaluated as "prepotent" for protection for all of the aforementioned reasons. The best we have is some anecdotal conjecture and "hope" from any given breeding lending itself toward the occasional "accident" where the stars line up and a given show line can perform at the National level. Kevin Nance

Kevin you are so right on all points.......but this could fall back into past discussions of WL vs SL.

Sport dog vs real working dog etc....Having had SL all my life and working K9s the past 15 years, I can tell  you there is just no comparison.
I think that is why discussions like this are important.  Exchanging ideas and information trying to improve the situation. 
Will it be "all better" in the next 5 years, 10 years...?   Probably not but who knows?  Maybe it will...we don't know til we try.
By seeking out the harder show line males and breeding them with the more serious females.....maybe we can make a beginning.

The parent clubs may or may not take a stand in this area....but really.  Who needs them to?  A few serious dog people can look at a dog and see the potential and go from there.  If we wait for the parent clubs or anyone else to do our dirty work for us, the job will never get done.
Every journey begins with one small step.

peace

VA2 NASS 2010 Ricco von der Zenteiche has had several progeny from different bitches from different lines, who are showing very consistent strong drives. The oldest. Is about 2yrs old, two that I see are about 17 months old, and one is about 6 months old. Look for his progeny in the future! His bitework at NASS was debated adnauseum, training, genetics, etc, but I can tell you his progeny are doing very well. Theresa

Theresa, can you post competitive club, regional, and National level trial accomplishments for Ricco along with video to demonstrate these "strong drives?". Will any of his progeny be capable of high in trial at my small UScA club in Alaska where the last trial under Willie Pope ranged in score from 240 to 281 among 13 working lines?" Lastly, if too young, do you anticipate that any of them will trial at the regional or National level or even at club level in the States? If so, I would love the opportunity to see them trial and perhaps add Ricco to that list of "showline males currently prepotent for protection." Thank you in advance. Kevin Nance

Hi Kevin, The dogs that I am referring to are young still, so I don't have video of what you are referring to, and I can only speak for myself. I have been dreaming of competing for Universal Sieger for yrs, and I finally believe that I have a serious prospect in my Ricco son Cisko. He is 17 months old now, and doing great in training. Look for us at NUSC 2012 in the Youth Universal Sieger competition. I will look for videos when I have some time, abd let you know. Theresa

Kevin,

You brought up a good point on the other thread where you commented about having Yasso from the beginning and being able to bring out more from him.

Typical showline breeder grows a puppy out and if it has the structure wotrth keeping at 12 months, it's time to start titling it. Of course by that time the opportunity to really train the dog has passed.

If you could guesstimate a percentage of a dogs ability that's lost through the lack of adequate foundation training from the beginning, what would you think that percentage would be?

By the way, Yasso's mother and Ricco's grandmother are the same dog.

Very little, I see police dog candidates that come in with little or no training at anywhere from 14 months to 2 years. And when trained they respond and accomplish the same things (even tougher) than a Sch dog. Either the dog has it or it doesn't ....bottom line!

This could be an interesting discussion. Seems like Kevin has a bit of a philosophy that there is some value to training a dog from the beginning, to bring it along as it develops and matures. There's another prospective; you can wait and the dog either has it or it doesn't. It could be good news for a lot of showline people. Just get your puppy, teach it not to jump on people. let it watch TV with you on the couch all day and play with the assortment of stuffed animals and toys it has access too all over the house. No problem. When it's a year old you can train it and it either has it or it doesn't.

Not sure I'm with that program but I would like to hear what others have to say...........

I talked to an older German breeder about 10-12 years ago.....the philosophy then was to let the dog be a dog for the first year.  Socialize it, play with it, teach it some manners but no serious training or pressure until 1 year of age.
I don't know if this is still the current line of thinking in Germany.