Origin of Arched Back - Page 4

CPhudson, thank you for the information!  Too bad their dogs could not make their way into the general genepool. Bummer. 

I wonder if anyone knows any German herding lines in existence today that mostly participate in herding and not conformation events?

Or, are there lines in England or elsewhere that would meet this requirement?

cphudson - Fidelco contacted me about a Eurosport working dog..... she was very mellow and could have done well, unfortunately she was already sold.

SitsMom what was the pedigree of that female Fidelco weas looking into?

The origin is some idiot show dog person. Here's the correct dog http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=1208

Showline people have completely ruined the GSD. The captain was right to be worried.

Here's another good book, by the captain himself: The German Shepherd Dog In Word And Picture

Gusmanda, please excuse my ignorance I would like to find the book you mentioned, but when you said it was by the captain himself... Who is the Captain?? Finding out which lines do best in herding would be interesting.  I have never trained one in herding, I always thought it would be fun to try something new, I live in a rural area with a lot of cattle farmers that use herding dogs, we have a lot of herding competitions for the border collies, ACDs, Aussies, you never see a gsd at them, but the old farmers love to show us "young ones" how it's done, so there is a wealth of info around about the herding itself, finding something out about those lines would be great.

There seems to be some improvement in SL backs at the Sieger Show this year. Perhaps the judges are starting to see that this has become too prominant of a problem.

If you want to see what the old sheep herding dogs looked like look at a good working line.  Some do look a bit diferent but they are still out there.

Funny that they should change the structure of a GSD in the  70's and 80's to make them cover more ground faster...when in fact they were seldom used as herding dogs anymore. 

I live very near to this place:
http://www.german-shepherdherding.com/

and I have the pleasure of regularly seeing dogs that are still used for and bred for herding.  I have even had the great pleasure of caring for one old man who was a dog Mr. Heyne had for many years. 

These dogs are very balanced both in temperament and looks.  They are not large dogs and they are have less angulation behind than the current trend in German showlines but more angulation than the current trend in German Working lines.  Their backs are neither arched or level.. but follow the normal S curve of the spine.  Because the dog is rectangular as opposed to a box, the back has a level section. 

I have seen one of these dogs easily jump a barrier approximately 1/3 higher than her withers (from a stand still). 

The lovely temperament of these dogs is noteworthy.  It is neither soft or over the top driven need to work every second they are awake.  The dogs are over all confident and intelligent and when the work is done, they know what it means to relax.  OTOH, when it is time to go they are up and ready. 

The reason the GSD used for guide dog is this temperament along with the genetic predisopostion to herd which requires certain inherited behaviors.  It was noticing this herding behavior that actually suggested to an observer that this breed might be trainable as a guide animal (my understaning is it was observed that a certain dog would place himself between his blind owner and dangerous things like stairs). 

Rass,
You are talking about TRUE German Shepherd temperament....hard to find in working or show lines.