So in the early days of this blog, I was wrong about something. I wish I had never written a word about German shepherd structure and hips, because I was essentially parroting nonsense that I’d read somewhere without asking for documentation. The rear angulation of the dog is not related to hip dysplasia. There are plenty of dogs with “extra: rears that have OFA excellent hips.
Also, although one can get worked up about “hock walking,” no one is actually intentionally breeding a German shepherd to walk on his hocks. The goal is to produce flowing side movement, where the dog opens up in the rear and shoulder. Some dogs may walk on their hocks, but if the dog is just going to be a pet, it’s not a major welfare issue. We have some studies on GSD longevity that show that skeletal and spinal issues are a major reason why they die, but those studies do not provide a break down about the dog’s actual conformation or if the dog died of a condition called degenerative myelopathy, which is a genetic condition that results in the dog’s spinal cord degenerating when it is an older dog.
I know there will be people who refuse to believe a single word I’ve written in these two paragraphs, and they will comment away about what an idiot I am for changing my mind. I honestly don’t care. I have looked at the same evidence you have, and I don’t find it convincing.
At the same time, though, people who have written and promoted the position that I once held about German shepherd structure have unintentionally set the breed up for failure in pet homes.
When we go on and on about how terrible the show dogs are, the pet buying public will naturally turn to breeders who have dogs that lack the rear angulation. The vast majority of German shepherds bred without this angulation are those bred for bite-work or for bite=work competitions. These are wonderful dogs. It was one of these dogs that turned me into a lover of the breed.
But they are not for everyone. These dogs have lots and lots of drive. They are smart. Some have really high defense drive and little social openness. Some poorly-bred ones are sketchy, and yes, some poorly-bred show dogs are sketchy freaks too.
But when the best dogs of this type are very high drive dogs and the worst are potentially dangerous, you are setting the public up for a disaster. People are getting super working dogs that need constant work and training just to feel content in the home, and the owners work 40 or 50 hours a week. People are also getting dogs that are neurotic and potentially dangerous.
This is not what most people want when they get a German shepherd, but because people like the me from a decade ago would go on and on about the “crippled” show lines, it has become received wisdom that the pet buying public should not buy a dog bred for conformation.
This is problematic, because most people would be better off with a conformation-bred dog. The reason is that dog shows themselves do place several unintentional selection pressures on breeding stock. A show dog is forced to deal with many, many dogs and lots of people walking around. All of these dogs are intact. Some may be in heat. Further, every show dog must accept fairly extensive grooming (even whippets!, and they must be able to receive an examination from a judge.
A dog that has a poor temperament simply cannot go through these selection pressures, and although there are dogs that have weird temperaments that do succeed in the ring and do get bred, the general average is for a dog that is far more mentally stable than the typical pet dog.
Also, because no one is breeding show German shepherds to break through windshields to get bad guys, no one is breeding for crazy drive and pain tolerance. The show dogs do have a quite a bit more drive and a need for exercise than the typical pet dog, but their needs are much easier for the typical family to meet.
I say this as someone who loves working line GSD and who will happily own another. I say this as someone who deeply cares for this breed.
But I think we have done a poor job by our constant haranguing of the show dogs in this breed. It is not serving the breed, the dogs, or the public well.
And it is also creating divisions between breeders, the people who should be standing together to ensure that every puppy goes into a loving home and that our favorite disciplines and activities for our dogs remain legal.
So I do feel a lot of guilt for what I have written. The best I can do is correct the errors from here on out.
And if you want a pet German shepherd, check out a breeder who specializes in good conformation stock. You’re far more likely to get what you really want than if you deliberately go searching for “straight-backed” dogs on the internet. The really ethical working dog breeders will steer you away from their dogs anyway, but the working dogs aren’t the first place to look for a pet. I’m sure there are working GSD breeders who are getting tired of the inquiries from people who are just seeking pets.
So all this rhetoric about crippled show dogs has done a very poor service to the breed. I am deeply sorry that I participated in it.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t get the appeal of “slanted” shepherds. Irrespective of what health issues it does or does not cause the dogs…..*why* is such angulation considered desirable in the first place? Who looked at German Shepherds way back when and said, “You know…these things could really stand to be slantier”? They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I struggle to comprehend how a heavily angulated dog could be considered more aesthetically appealing than a straight-backed one, especially in a breed that had its origins as a working dog. But it’s very subjective I suppose.
And, is there any particular reason why nobody is breeding straight-backed shepherds with temperaments more suitable to being family pets? If there are, in fact, lots of buyers simply seeking pets that are unwisely gravitating toward the straight-backed working-line dogs purely due to their more “natural” morphology, than it seems like there is an untapped market niche for straight-backed shepherds without the “edge” of the working lines.
The “slanted” deal is a combination of things. Part of it is the way the dogs are “stacked” for show, with one back leg set forward, causing the backline to slope more than it really does, and the further you bring that back leg forward (“deep stack”) the more dramatic the slope. In the American and Canadian show rings it’s common to stack a dog with one “hock” flat on the ground or nearly so. Guidelines call for a 45 degree angle and the deep stack obviously does not help the breed’s public perception, but it is what it is. To illustrate how radically it can alter the appearance, here is a straight- and level-backed Australian Shepherd puppy in a 3-point stack, and standing normally: https://i.imgur.com/XBIhQqF.jpg, and an ASL GSD in various poses: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/cf/1d/bc/cf1dbc5bae2377b487deb2504ce3f907.jpg
By and large, the American show line dogs actually have perfectly straight backs. Straight, not level. There is a slope to it caused by the extra angulation of the rear legs vs. most other dogs, and the degree of slope will vary based on the degree of angulation and the individual components making up said angulation, along with the height of the withers. This doesn’t cause hip, spinal, or any other disease as far as is confidently known, but the lower hip-and-knee position resulting from this angulation causes reduced powers of galloping and jumping and increases energy needed to propel the hindquarter forward (try walking with your knees bent). The degree to which this occurs, again, varies with the degree of angulation and is influenced by other components as well. Whether it has a serious consequence on a given dog, once again, varies. On the subject of hip dysplasia specifically, I’m having trouble finding it now, but a study stated HD occurs in GSDs at a rate similar to that of Rottweilers and Pit Bulls, but GSDs appeared much more sensitive to its effects, with no obvious medical cause for this difference. The author posited that it may have to do with the “stoic” nature of the other two breeds, but it’s my unproven crack theory that it may have something to do with the lower position of the hips. Once again, no evidence to support this, and the study didn’t indicate whether the GSDs were show lines or working lines, but I’m wonderin’.
The slope of the back hasn’t purposely been bred for; it’s the rear angulation that has (on the contrary, the curved spine in the German show dogs has been purposely pursued). Greater angulation causes a greater length of stride, which is hugely prized in the show dogs. The gait is a source of more fascination in the show GSD world than in any other breed by far. The line of thought, put forward by von Stephanitz when creating his improved “universal sheepdog”, is that a longer stride equals less energy expended (b/c fewer steps taken) per amount of ground covered, and this is true, *but only to a point*, which the show dogs began to exceed in the 1970s-1990s, depending on line. A very long ground-covering gait is purportedly important to the GSD because of its origins as a herding dog. Herding dogs in Germany must use a unique style quite unlike collies, called “tending”, where they move back and forth or around the free-ranging sheep repeatedly as needed to act as a “living fence”, keeping them in one area and out of crops and such. A nice video of a shepherd’s dog sheep tending is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj8zAT9KHak – the dog is one variety of the old German herding landrace dogs, the likes of which the GSD stock was selected from. More footage can be found by searching “altdeutsche hütehunde”. You’ll notice this dog’s stride is not much longer than the average dog of any breed, and yet he appears to be having no difficulty doing his job; this is why I don’t buy the assertion that the long gait / extra angulation is needed in the GSD or that it makes them a better sheepdog.
Though evidently unnecessary and use of the breed apparently not widespread among the shepherds of Germany (I’ve struggled to find videos of GSDs being used as occupational sheepdogs while there are plenty of landrace dogs, and the few I have found were of the short-stride working type), the long-stride-energy-transmission theory is still scientifically sound, and surely very pretty to watch when executed correctly – this is German Sieger Dingo vom Haus Gero, b. 1978, considered by many to be “the best mover of all time”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zju0lubAaJ8, 9:20. Cool soundtrack too.
(here’s Dingo in a stack, a correct 45-degree-hock one: http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/pictures/39-322726.jpg – funny to think he probably wouldn’t get a second look in either the German or American show ring today – much too moderate)
However, this optimum energy efficiency is lost as soon as the front foot is reaching much beyond the dog’s nose, and movement of the rear legs is altogether more complex. All of this is explained in-depth in this illustrated paper: https://www.louisdonald.com/uploads/2/7/3/7/27379747/a_discussion_paper_on_the_structure_of_the_gsd.pdf
Surely a more tangential answer than you were looking for, but hopefully you were able to extract something useful from my rattling on. ;)
“And, is there any particular reason why nobody is breeding straight-backed shepherds with temperaments more suitable to being family pets?”
Translating “straight back” to “level back/less rear angulation”, there are whole web directories of people doing this, but it’s under strange pretenses. They advertise themselves as “old-fashioned straight back German Shepherds” with “calm family temperaments” – OK, cool, whatever – but then part of the package is invariably “large” “oversize” “large boned”, and tales that von Stephanitz used huge dogs in his programs that later shows squeezed out (false). The dogs start at 90 pounds and go up to 130. I have NO idea where they got the idea that the dogs were ever larger than they are now, or how this idea spread to dozens and dozens of people. GSDs have only increased in size, and VS set the desired size as 66 to 88 lbs when he drew up the standard. That range hasn’t changed to this day.
These breeders are commonly doing basic health/hip testing, generally appear to treat their dogs well, and they are breeding what people want (big lazy family dogs), so far be it from me to look down on them, but the size fantasy is just… strange, and not beneficial for joints or longevity. They’re more or less Shiloh Shepherds or King Shepherds.
There are other regular-sized pet-only breeders, too, advertising “straight back” (pasterns and feet often another story, but that’s breed-wide), but most typically they are the definition of backyard breeder. No health testing to speak of, missing pedigrees, sometimes questionable conditions for dogs, probably a good dose of shaky temperaments, and often breeding for “rare” colors like blue and liver. There are probably good breeders of this class out there somewhere, but I haven’t come across them.
Coincidentally I have never seen a good working breeder advertising “straight back”; possibly because they understand the silliness of the term and its lack of relation to HD and DM; possibly because they don’t feel the need to subtly disparage others in order to sell their dogs.
There are other options to the two, like dogs not bred for the “work” that is intended primarily for bite sports OR the current conformation lines with hugely slanted backs or roach backs overseas. People do find other sources and they aren’t all BYBs, which many good people outside the boxes might say is a term for “You don’t agree with me”.
Or, yet another option would be to continue the trend towards moderating those slanted backlines in the show ring,which is a good thing.
Dr. Fischer might agree. https://www.amazon.com/Motion-Hunde-Bewegung-Professor-Fischer/dp/B005FEGE0Q
Loads of dogs have wonderful natural effortless movement. Only show line GSDs are bred this way.
If it can ever be demonstrated that this is a welfare problem (which it never has been), then it’s worth a discussion. The back itself does not slop. It is the angulation of the rear that makes the croup slope. Even Anka had a sloping back. It just wasn’t extreme. I don’t think Dr. Fischer has the goods on any of this. It’s just idle talk by people who want to end dog shows. The actual movement of an American show GSD that is correct is as beautiful as any finely gaited horse. After having my mind changed on these issues, by the dogs no less, I just get tired of the same ol’ crap getting brought up. Quest can do everything that Anka could do, including massive leaps into the air to catch a ball. He’s also 30 pounds heavier than she is.
There is also an giant appeal to nature logical fallacy about these dogs that often gets bandied about. Wolves don’t walk this way! Well, no one ever said these dogs were wolves.
“The actual movement of an American show GSD that is correct is as beautiful as any finely gaited horse.”
— And as inefficient, at least in the flying trot. The high-stepping flashy gaits of many gaited horses have traditionally been achieved by weighting and soring the front feet, and jacking them up on built-up shoes. Thankfully, soring is illegal now (though some trainers still resort to it surreptitiously), but a flat-shod, naturally gaited horse is a joy to watch.
I love American showline GSDs, but I dislike the GSDCA/AKC emphasis on flashy side movement and I hate that AKC stack. The move away from breeding for extreme angulation toward more moderate structure & less flashy side motion is long overdue. It’s happening – slowly; I hope it continues.
A good pet German shepherd is one that will be both physically and mentally sound. Working line GSD breeders aren’t necessarily after high-drive hyperaggressive dogs; those dogs can be great for IPO or other bitework competition, but you don’t want one for a guide dog.
There are a lot of breeders of GSDs who do all the appropriate health testing and raise terrific dogs, but who don’t breed for AKC conformation showing, nor for bitework. There are still GSD breeders who place most of their emphasis on breeding healthy, stable pets. GSDs are not simply show dogs on the one hand and IPO dogs on the other; there is a huge middle ground in North American GSDs, between the many overangulated dogs being bred for AKC conformation showing and the many hyperaggressive hair-trigger dogs being bred for international-level IPO bitework.
Within that middle area are most of the actual working GSDs – police K9s; MWDs; SAR; nosework of various kinds; guide dogs; therapy dogs; etc.- most of those dogs come from dedicated breeders who emphasis solid nerves and sound structure; dogs of moderate build who can work all day and then work all day again, for years.
The last time a GSD was both an American and a German champion was in the late 1960s. The huge breed schism that began in the early 1970s has led to show dogs in Germany and the USA that – except for the colors and erect ears – almost look and act like different breeds. But there is a middle ground.
You’re right about the “straight back”, of course (depending on how one decides exactly what vertebrae are included in “the back”). The backs themselves are generally straight, and a dog stacked for a judge’s examination looks very different than that same dog running after a frisbee or working sheep. Part of the problem is fashion; people have come to expect to see GSDs posed in a 3 point stack and they’ve come to expect the flashy side movement in the show ring. It does look elegant. But breeding for it has resulted in a plethora of physical problems.
It may take years of study to sort and prove that; university studies are expensive. GDV is very common in ASL GSDs; is that related to loose ligaments & connective tissue problems resulting from breeding for overangulation & flashy side movement? We don’t know. There’s evidence that there may be a correlation, but it isn’t conclusive.
DM is terribly common in GSDs (as well as some other breeds). Is it related to the steep croup & pelvic structure? We don’t know. We do know that a recessive allele is implicated in causing DM in GSDs, so ethical breeders will have their stock tested and only do breedings that will not result in puppies inheriting two copies. There are breeders who roll the dice anyway and breed carriers together. That is just obscene. Dogs don’t usually develop DM until middle to old age, and even if a breeder takes the DM dog back, that person or family has been left devastated by a loss that could have been prevented through responsible breeding.
Perineal fistulae; epilepsy; hemophilia; various cancers; I could go on and on but I won’t; there are a great many heritable conditions in GSDs, and even responsible breeding won’t eliminate them all. But irresponsible breeding will certainly not eliminate those heritable diseases.
You know how much I of all people love German shepherd dogs; I’ve been with your blog for a long time; ever since way back when it sometimes broke my heart to read what you wrote – but I knew that if you ever had the chance to really get your hands on a great GSD, you would see why I love them. And you know I’m not trashing them. ANY of them. But I’m a realist, and I won’t bury my head in the sand and try to pretend the problems away.
I disagree that people looking for a pet GSD would do best to seek out a breeder who breeds mainly for show conformation and competition. Plenty of dogs from show conformation breeding do NOT make good pets, especially for families with children. You and I could probably each name three or four like that without even trying. And plenty of GSDs from breeders who are IPO competitors do make good pets, provided they are well brought up, trained and socialized, by people who don’t expect their new puppy to just magically be Rin Tin Tin, right out of the box, so to speak. People seeking pet GSDs are often better off acquiring a grown dog that has been fostered by a reputable, experienced person. Yes, I went there; I’m not an adopt-don’t-shop person, but a well-trained & socialized young adult GSD is often the best choice for a family who is acquiring a GSD for the first time. Or take in a retired show dog; they are usually wonderful pets and have been so throughly handled and exposed to so many crowds and diverse people that they do very well as family pets when they retire.
But if people want a GSD puppy just to add to a family, as a pet, their best option might very well be the small-scale breeder who raises German shepherds specifically for pets. One who does have health-tested stock, gives an absolute guarantee on the dog’s health and temperament, and perhaps lives close enough to recommend a good local trainer experienced with GSDs, or even has puppy classes on their own premises. I do not use the term byb (backyard breeder) anymore, because some of my best pet dogs have come from small-scale, casual breeders. When people buy a puppy from show stock or sport dog stock & that puppy has too much drive, too much energy, or develops muscular or skeletal problems, the disappointment may lead them to surrender that puppy to a shelter and tell everyone that GSDs are not what they appear to be – when really, it was a match of the wrong puppy for their situation.
What I would love to see is a return to a more moderate show stack in AKC conformation, such as the UKC is doing now, for example – and yes, there are dogs that achieve CH in both AKC and UKC; GSDs allowed to move naturally around the ring; and yes, less animosity between the showline enthusiasts and the workline enthusiasts. Moderation has traditionally been the keyword in GSDs: the dog who can do anything asked of it, just show it what you need it to do. I applaud all GSD breeders – show breeders; working dog breeders; sport dog breeders, and pet breeders – who obtain herding, working, obedience, sporting, and other titles on their show stock.
But it isn’t the complaints about AKC (or come to that, WGSL) show dogs that set GSDs up for failure as pets. It’s the bizarre spectacles the shows have become, where GSDs are concerned. GSD fanciers at both extremes (show & IPO) need to dial it back a bit; work on getting back to that generalist BSD that can do anything asked of it.
And I will take this moment to say what a great job that you and Jenna have done with Quest. He is maturing beautifully, and you guys have kept him wonderfully active in so many ways. I know that you will do the same with little Dare & look forward to seeing her grow up. You know I love those B & T sheps.
All due respect, Scottie, but this is a rather unfair assessment of the working line dogs. It’s simply not true that they can’t or don’t often make good family pets in non-working homes. On the subject of tired old lines that get thrown around, that’s actually an established one of those, by those who prefer the show lines (most of which who say this having no or limited experience with WLs).
I have known several non-working owners and families, many with children, who have been thrilled with their WL dogs, and heard of many more. People who work full time. They are not dogs for the sedentary home, but neither are Labradors, or show-line GSDs! There are plenty of wild, wholly unsuitable WLs out there, surely, but that is not every pup in every litter of every breeding by every breeder. The trick is finding a breeder who is selecting for dogs that can be nice daily house companions in addition to whatever work they go for, i.e. “good off switch”. Second, the breeder places great importance on evaluating puppy personalities and drives as they grow, and matching puppy to owner. The same thing a good show breeder does. Little sample of this from a working breeder I like very much, Blackthorn: http://www.blackthornkennel.com/puppies/dlitter.html
Just a few others within driving distance following these procedures are Sequoyah GSDs, Camelot GSDs, Wildhaus, vom Kriegherz, and Haus Morrison. (Can you tell I keep lists?)
“I’m sure there are working GSD breeders who are getting tired of the inquiries from people who are just seeking pets.” – I doubt this is a major issue, if it exists at all. I could see this happening with some of the old-school chain-link working breeders, but most, in my experience, are happy to engage and educate people who come to them on making the best decisions. As I said above, though, many of these dogs are successful family pets. There are times where a pup in a working-bred litter may be unsuited to be anything but a goofy, laid-back pet.
Anka was surely a lovely girl and had her specific issues, but one dog is not representative of all WLs, in any given respect. In just the same way that Quest is not representative of all SLs. And the same way that the temperamentally phenomenal GSDs that I grew up with are not representative of the whole breed, as much as I would like them to be. As a side note, they were WGSL crosses.
However, as you noted, there is a significant problem with underinformed, inexperienced pet owners taking on WL dogs in the mistaken popular belief that “straight [level] back” equates to less HD or paralysis. Knowing nothing about hip scoring or DM or health testing of any sort. Thinking any individual of this breed must be the same personality-wise as their neighbor’s GSD. Going on Craigslist and searching for “working german shepard”. Getting a $500 puppy from Sergeant Bob’s Schutzhund Kennel, where the exclusively bred-for-work adults live in kennels full-time, the puppies are whelped and raised in a kennel or yard from birth to 8 weeks, exposed to nothing, and not evaluated for proper placement. They take him home and probably screw everything up infinitely the way half+ of puppy owners do. Disaster regardless of the breed or lines of the pup in this scenario, ultra disaster here.
I don’t really think the blame can be placed on bloggers or YouTube commenters. Irresponsible or dishonest, health-untested, not socializing, not educating the buyer, puppy sources are abound in every popular breed; there has been very little done to reasonably and accessibly address this by any major doggy party, at least not that I have seen (which would mean Johnny Craigslistsearcher definitely isn’t seeing them). HSUS, ASPCA, major animal welfare orgs are sadly not going to put their money into widespread campaigns other than unhelpful (to the puppy-desiring crowd) “adopt don’t shop” mantras. Statements made by these groups and puppy books about “reputable breeders” are often just silliness – “the puppies should be clean”, “meet both parents”. There is no way the AKC is going to ‘speak against’ any breeder who is paying their litter registration fees; see their love affair with tastefully termed “high-volume breeders”.
People just have absolutely no idea. They really don’t. They don’t know OFA from a hole in the ground. They think you can tell health from looking at a dog. They can’t identify different types of breeders. They don’t know how puppies need to be raised. They can’t read a pedigree. They don’t know about genetic differences between lines and individuals; they don’t even know genetic differences between breeds. They think a Malionois will make a great pet because they heard they’re healthy and easy to train. Nobody is educating them about these things, and they don’t even know enough to do research. There NEEDS to be public outreach, probably at the local level, on what to look for in a breed and a breeder or this will not change. Humane orgs doing outreach comes to mind, but the job should really be on the stewards of the pure breeds. Looking at the local and national breed clubs. Far too much of a “not our problem” “irresponsible breeders/owners” attitude in many breed communities re: crappy dogs or unsuitable homes.
Onto perception of anatomy, the GSD as a breed stands apart in just how deeply unaccessible it is to the average person; by that I mean it is so difficult to figure out what is actually going on from the outside looking in, and at first, second, and third glance, the stack and the movement of the show dogs looks genuinely bizarre compared to absolutely any other breed. I do not say this to be insulting. I know they aren’t, by and large, “cripples”. *I* know what I’m looking at; I know the dog is standing in a human-manipulated pose that drastically alters his topline; I know, from seeing it in slow-mo + not in thick grass, that he is landing on the very-very back of his pawpad, not his “hock”, I know that the unusual low hip position of the show GSD, funnily enough, does not seemingly cause the breed’s high risk of HD, and the unusual sloped (ASL) or curved (WGSL) spine, also, is not connected to the high risk of genetic spinal disease. Other people do not. Other doggy people do not. Other more casual GSD people do not. To them, the gait is simply abnormal, not like any other dog’s and therefore must necessarily be unhealthy; and the breed has low hips and odd gait / breed has hip dysplasia combination of traits cannot be coincidental, nor can the funny spine / spinal disease one, for those who know about spinal disease. Understandable human tendency to assume causation from correlation.
At first you actually have to re-train your brain to correctly interpret what you’re seeing, visualizing what the footfall actually looks like up close in slow motion, when a show GSD is gaiting instead of the visceral “my word, that’s not normal dog movement, looks painful” reaction. Especially strong when you live with dogs who don’t move that way, or have just watched a dozen other working breeds at the show with a typical doggy trot do their thing.
You see, of course, how this is a great deal of learning to ask of somebody not deeply involved with the breed. “The breed has a long trot to tend sheep more efficiently” is often not really a satisfactory answer to inquiries about the gait (because it still looks too strange), or it just sounds like straight show BS (which, again, not trying to insult, but there is some truth to that, per the continued existence and working status of the unchanged sheep-tending old German herding dogs, the stride of which is about as long as a border collie’s – https://www.a-a-h.org). The teaching can be done, or attempted, but so often, it isn’t. You get an internet comment on a show dog video along the lines of “that dog is walking on his hocks, he’s going to die of hip dysplasia at 5” by a dog lover who is concerned and upset by this perceived suffering of an animal, and a show person unfailingly comes back with something to the tune of “no he’s not, he has excellent hips, you know nothing, be quiet”. The clubs do the same; frequently they’re genuine echo chambers to the extreme, and concerns from outside, or even inside, the breed are either chastised or ignored. Exclusivity and silencing are tradition in the dog fancy, of course, but if a group wants to improve public perception of their breed, this is not the way to do it. These things aren’t *universal*, there are many lovely show breeders, but elitism and impatience are far too common.
My last bit will be on your “Some dogs may walk on their hocks, but if the dog is just going to be a pet, it’s not a major welfare issue.” piece – well, it’s not quite like pinched nostrils, but it’s still a serious problem. He may not be a working dog on his feet all day, but it’s just not fair to him – “bones of the rear pastern which have no absorption qualities receive the full force of ground impact”, says well-studied SV judge Louis Donald – https://www.louisdonald.com/hindquarter-of-the-german-shepherd-dog.html. Along with soreness or fatigue, it is probably safe to assume this unprotected bony piece in contact with the ground brings with it a greater risk of trauma or injury to the area. Aside from the metatarsus itself, the hock joint is relatively fragile; and, when shock is not absorbed by the feet, it instead travels further up the leg. The older dog with a bit of hip dysplasia or arthritis would probably have something to say about that not being “a major issue”, pet or not. Fortunately this trait is not nearly as common as breed disparagers would have you believe, but it’s depressing that it’s still showing up, and even moreso that these poor dogs sometimes even manage to rise through the show ranks. Nobody is purposely breeding for it, but that it’s still appearing in pups at any rate would seem to indicate that the conformational margin of error in a given line of dogs is just too narrow. And I could never possibly conceive of why a breeder or owner would believe such a dog to be acceptable to show.
Some good GSD reading if you’re interested, Scottie –
– Louis Donald’s site, https://louisdonald.com – plenty of intensely thorough articles explaining individual components of breed anatomy but this paper is a good place to start: https://www.louisdonald.com/uploads/2/7/3/7/27379747/a_discussion_paper_on_the_structure_of_the_gsd.pdf
– The Illustrated Standard for the German Shepherd Dog by Linda Shaw – expensive but indispensable visual resource for understanding structure in the GSD, even if you hate head and coat silliness (Genetic diversity? No?). Shaw was a great asset to the breed. Preview here: http://www.vtgsd.com/publicgsdfiles/The-Illustrated-Standard-for-the-German-Shepherd-Dog.pdf
– The German Shepherd Dog In Word and Picture by von Stephanitz, free ebook here: https://archive.org/details/CAT10506117
– The Total German Shepherd Dog by Fred Lanting + his articles
– Dogsteps by Rachel Elliot & Canine Locomotion by Curtis Brown
– The German Shepherd Dog: A Genetic History by Malcolm Willis is supposed to be excellent, on my “as soon as I can justify $50 on yet another dog book” list… the last one was Louis Colby’s Book of the APBT. How radically different the breeds are in their origins, now found sleeping on the same couch together.