Why can North American GSD breeders never seem to breed world class dogs?? - Page 7

gigante, the majority of explosive, detection, patrol and other K9 dogs are still imported from europe as well, USA still is unable to produce those themselves after all those years

central europe has a much larger number of work-oriented dogs spread over a much smaller geographic region, i.e. central europe has a high 'working dog density.'
this allows for a comparatively cost-effective observation/evaluation of a large(r) number of dogs facilitating more nuanced decisions. which in turn, one would expect, leads to higher 'above-average' result; the same holds for purchasing a (sport/working) prospect: i can look at some thirty, forty dogs over the course of a week driving, maybe, 100, 150 km a day, as opposed to flying to four or five states with one or two suitable prospects per state at best.

if, for the purpose of this discourse, one defines breeders as the responsible subset of usa breeders that actually does apply both health, e.g. hd/ed ofa or pen hip, and ability, e.g., ipo or hgh titles, criteria, i tend to rather confidently postulate that these breeders produce genotype that at the very least is, on average, competitive with central european litters. alas, it's a very small number of breeders that fall into this category making for a very limited supply.

a high quality pup/litter, however, is a necessary but not sufficient for a successful working dog. hence, one needs to make a clear distinction between geno- and phenotype if useful and actionable insights are desired. this holds even more true considering that that phenotypic plasticity of dogs, and gsd's in particular, is quite hight. that is, environmental factors have a high contributing role to the development of the phenotype. again, european 'dog density' has created a developmental infrastructure that provides more and more easily accessible high-quality helpers and trainers as well as working dog owners/handlers. you add to that more trials with a higher number of competitive teams and you get a self-reinforcing system.

the comparative advantages of the european "gsd industry", if you will, directly define their sustained competitive advantages. while such heavily ingrained and institutionalized advantages are hard to replicate, it repeatedly has been achieved. a harvard economist by the name of michael porter has done a lot of work in this area, e.g. 'the competitive advantage of nations' is brilliant and relevant material. more practically, hockey usa has developed a rather successful set of programs catapulting usa hockey into very top of the world standings. unfortunately, to overcome other "nations" competitive advantages, extensive 'coopetition", i.e simultaneous competition and cooperation, is required for sustained periods of time from all 'market' participants toward the common goal. given our (gsd industry -- associations, clubs, etc.) history, this is highly unlikely to occur at the necessary level and various threads on this forum are testament to this disenfranchised stat of affairs. yet, one can still hope that this thread is an impetuous force towards a rather desirable end -- a concerted effort toward better breeders, helpers, owners/handlers and, of course, dogs.

World class would by the definition of this thread be competing at the world competitions for GSD in any dog sport ( IPO, KNPV, Belgian Ring, French Ring, Mondioring, herding, SAR, tracking, etc.).  National champions would also be considered "world class" even if they did not win or place high in world competitions.  I am not a big fan of using titles and wins as a definition of greatness but if there is a better definition that all can agree on please advise.

This is a very interesting topic and since I am just starting out in the competitive GSD world, I can't speak for anyone but myself. So what I will say to the comments below is:

"In reality people are neither interested in training nor willing to learn anything about this wonderful breed"
"As I said before, once again for all of you : THERE ARE GREAT DOGS IN THE UNITED STATES, TRAIN, TITLE, AND SHOW THEM!"

It's not as easy as just going out and training and titling and showing. For me, money is a major issue and so is finding a good support system and competent
helper. I live in the Long Beach/Belmont Shores area So Cal and there is no good club around me. I can't just watch a video or read on a forum and hope to know
what it being talked about. I am very serious about being involved and trying hard to find a mentor but it;s hard when no one wants to share knowledge. 
This is what I have seen with many of my friends who want to get into the sport also. It's very hard to find a guide, so it;s mostly trial and error and hope it works.

With every sport i played, i had a coach/guide to help me excel and get to the next level. At my job I have had mentors who allowed me to flourish but in this sport
it seems like no one want to help the new guy. 

I have bought videos and this and that and money adds up and for what...........I'm a tac/tile learner and many who first get into training are. It's not as simple as
waking up one day and BAM, knowing how to read a dog, tap into different drives and so on. 

I believe this sport would be much more if it had a mentor program and beginners in sport and breeding. 

there is your problem bubba and it works both ways, people measure quality by competition wins, and breed to competition winners, and that is were the breed loses bigtime, I would say one of  the biggest threaths to workingbreeds these days is the modern positive trainingways where soft, high drive dogs are shaped and pampered and secured and become competitionwinners and end up breeding the lot

 

Answering Bubbabooboo's question, some paragraphs back,
about US dogs going TO Europe:

In the case of the UK, yes, but only a handful, and most of
those AKC  SLs.

Nothing, Bob...
To each its own - for me a well balanced, healthy, good looking, real working dog with a lot of power and strength.

During the decades I owned some near to "my" personal standard - but I loved all of them including their major or minor faults.
What about you?

Bebo .. while Europe may have greater density of dog sports they are not all the same GSD dogs or using similar GSD attributes.  KNPV dogs are not doing so well in IPO and IPO dogs are not so good in KNPV.  The same follows with the ring sports, herding, S&R, agility etc.  Perhaps it is a language thing as the Spanish and English speaking countries seem to import the GSD and the non native speaking European English countries export them.  The Italians are both importers and exporters of GSD I believe.  The Asian countries seem to be GSD importers at the moment but it may be the Chinese will soon flood the market??

For everyone who thinks the Europeans and Germans all love each other and cooperate I think that is to ignore the historical truth.  There are plenty of German kennels that have died out when no one in the family continued the tradition plus there are many examples of kennels in Europe split into fragments by family feuds and disagreements.  Certainly there is no love lost between the French, English and Germans.  The former eastern block nations also have a history of self inflicted wounds and infighting so to paint the Euro zone as one big happy family is probably not being realistic either.  I would argue that the European GSD breeders are more focused and dedicated to a long term goal than most N Americans that are looking for immediate results in both their investments and their dog breeding in the next quarter rather than in the next decade.  In North America the dog of the year becomes the next big thing and everyone agrees too easily that if we all breed to the latest super dog reaching our goal is inevitable.  The Germans in particular can have a huge brawl and fight about deciding direction for their business or nation but once a decision is made they tend to work together much better and with less infighting than N Americans who often continue to grease the train tracks and pour sugar in the gas tank if their group does not win the argument ( think the US Congress ??).  My suggestion is that there has been nothing stopping N American GSD breeders from achieving parity with the European breeders other than a lack of focus, will, and dedication to that goal.

Gekswag, I know it´s not easy, but go for it.
You said that there are friends of you also interested in the sport.
Work together, share the equipment, help each other.
Try to learn where ever you have the possibility.
You don´t need to title your dog, have fun and learn.
Don´t await to learn within a couple of months, training dogs means learning your whole life, making faults, learning every day - and every dog is different...

Duke1965  ..  If positive training methods are ruining the GSD I don't see it.  I think that is a pitiful excuse for bad training methods. Positive training methods are not an end in themselves but trainers like Ivan Balabanov train high level and tough protection dogs using positive methods but not just positive methods.  Trainers like Michael Ellis have years of experience with police dogs and they continue with positive methods because they are faster, easier, and leave the trainer with more dog in the tank to work with when they NEED to use electric collars or prong collars for correction.  Much of the positive training work used by Michael Ellis and Ivan Balabanov is used in the 6-12 month time frame of the dogs education which was a time the dog was trained little by the "hit them in the head" trainers because the dogs could not take the abuse without crashing at the early age.  A lot of the "old school" dog trainers did little or nothing with their puppies until 12 months because the young dogs could not handle the abuse.