Natural History

A lot of controversies exist about German shepherds. Opinions about them are often fixed and diametrically opposed to each other. I used to be of the camp that the dog had seen its better days.

Since I’ve gotten into the breed, I’ve discovered there are lots of good ones being bred, but the community is so divided about what a “good one” is.

When a breed has as many applications as this one, it’s going to diverge a bit in its talents, and the strains are going to vary. I’d argue there are 6.5 different strains of German shepherd, and if you like the traits of one strain, you might not like the types of another

6.5 strains are:

1. West German working line
2. West German showline
3. East German working line
4. Czech/Slovak working lines (from the former Czechoslovakia), which are usually just called Czech lines. However, a lot of these also come from Slovakia, and let’s not erase the Slovak people and their dogs from our discussion.
5. American showline
6. 5 Pet lines, including white, blue, and liver color-bred lines, which I think of as a subset of pet lines but are kind of a line of their own.

The first one of these I ever had was a Czech monster that could never be trusted around other dogs. For me, that’s the deal-breaker. You want to fight other dogs for no good reason, you get your walking papers. I don’t have time for a dog that does that. I live in a house with whippets, which are thin-skinned, short-haired, and have almost no body fat.  A German shepherd can put some nice holes in one of those, and not only that, we use whippets to condition our dogs.  The whippet gets a toy, and the German shepherds try to herd the whippet. If you use your teeth on a whippet, the whippet has permission to correct you, and the German shepherd that I want won’t use that correction as an excuse to off the long-legged speedster.

So this means that most of the bite-sport and protection lines of this dog I simply have no time for. Dog aggression in some of these lines are a feature and not a bug. For those of you who remember Anka, that’s why she left.

All the other dogs I have are American showlines or American showlines crossed with West German showlines, except for Sagan, who is a 100 percent SV conformation dog.

Sagan’s sire can do the full IPO 3 routine:

I like this type of West German showline.  It’s like you’ve taken the things I like about working lines and American show lines and sort of combined them. Sagan is as focused as the best West German working lines, but he’s got a nice off switch.

We are going to breed these dogs, and we’re doing what our mentors have been doing.  We are going to breed American showlines to West German showlines.  The really stable German dogs complement the temperaments of the really stable American ones. Our goals are not to breed dogs that necessarily have that “speed skater” body that does well at specialties. Our goals are to produce dogs with good bone, good minds, beautiful coats, and superb temperaments.

I like the movement on well-gaited and balanced American show lines. I like it more than the West German gait, which isn’t as ostentatious.  The American gait can lead to a hypertype, which is often called a “hockwalker,” and you can produce them if you breed for too much hypertype. The German dogs help correct this tendency, while also giving you good bone and coat and improving the tan pigment, which is really red in those lines. It is also a bit easier to avoid DM with the West German lines than American showlines, because the American lines I like are full of DM, but conscientious breeders are using dogs like Sagan to breed away from it.

Last night, I watched a video from Butch Cappel’s dog training channel on Youtube.  Cappel is breeding a working German shepherd that has no undercoat called the Western shepherd, which fits in better with the hot climate of Texas. I really enjoy his insights in dog training and the breed.

His main focus is on producing not a bite sport dog but a true protection dog that can be used to guard properties and personnel.  He and I have entirely different goats for a German shepherd, and that’s okay.  It’s a free country, and it’s a breed with lots of applications.

In this video, he has a discussion with a gentleman who has been breeding working line dogs, and I don’t know what it is, but every working line person wants to crap on American dogs. He also says that show people only care about the conformation of the dog, which is not at all been my experience with the show dogs in the breed. Yes, there is a lot of money in showing these dogs, but everyone wants to produce a dog that is a sound mover with a sound temperament. It’s just not that easy.

What he says about the sloping back causing hip dysplasia is wrong.  What causes hip dysplasia is the formation of the hip joint, not the turn of stifle, which produces the rear angulation that causes the back to slope. A well-bred and balanced American show dog has a lot of power in its read. Quest can jump way over my head from a sitting position. He has the rear angulation, and his hips have been OFA prelimmed as good. 

He also seems to have missed that a lot of East German dogs, at least when they were first brought over here, were hip dysplasia city. They bred these dogs to be really large and intimidating, but they weren’t paying attention to how the joints were forming.

Further, my dogs fit my criteria for temperament. Quest has a good, solid temperament. You can turn him out with other males. If you tell him to leave a bitch season alone, he won’t even look at her.

However, if he feels that we’re in danger, he does have the protective side.  A few weeks ago, I was walking him on-leash in the neighborhood, and a Labrador with a bad attitude started staring me down from her lawn. I have known this dog for years. She has a screw loose, but she’s a wuss.

Quest didn’t do a damned thing but stare back at her. When she approached with aggressive intent, Quest roared, broke his heel position, and got between me and the Labrador. I was honestly not expecting that. The Labrador wasn’t expecting it either, and he went back to her house.

If some criminal wanted to do something to one of us, I’m sure he’d do much the same thing, and honestly, that’s all I need for deterrent.

If you need a dog for actual protection work, don’t get an American dog. I won’t argue with you on that. If want a family dog and a stock dog, they are pretty good at both, though. They are not harder to train than the working lines, though they can be a little harder to housebreak.  An American dog often isn’t fully housebroken until its 8 or 9 months old, but the other lines tend to get it way faster.

However, there are working line dogs and there are “working line” dogs. Because there is so much hysteria about “sloping backs” over here, there is a bit of a marketing con going on in the US. People will buy working lines because they are true to Stephanitz’s vision and are straight-backed, and there are plenty of unscrupulous people breeding them, often with no testing for ability or health.

And that’s where you get your dogs with nightmare temperaments.  Not all of these dogs are super aggressive, but a lot of them have to be almost abused to have any kind of impulse control. They can’t stop screaming when they are excited, and the level of dog aggression they have rival that of an Akita or pit bull.

Yes, there are dog aggressive showlines, and I know of lots of working line GSD that are good with other dogs.  But the showlines are easier to teach impulse control.

Plus, I’ll be dead honest with you. I don’t care about protection sports or breeding police, military, or protection sports. I might consider doing some lower level stuff, but it’s not that interesting to me.

I am more interested in stockdog stuff and AKC obedience. So wouldn’t I be better off with a border collie?

No. I tried those, and I cannot form a good working relationship with one.  They are smart, but they way more into their work than they are into you. A German shepherd says, “What can I do for you today, beloved master?” A border collie says “Let me work, bald monkey! Can’t stop working! Can’t stop working! Don’t make me quit!”

I am also interested in producing a dog that fits into modern society and can be a great pet with the kids. The dog snobs of the world don’t much like this concept, which is why in some dog circles, you’re not a real dog person until you get your first KNPV Malinois.

I think there is a place for a German shepherd as an active pet. It’s one you can do things with. It will like your kids. It will roar bark when someone come sneaking around your property. It will play with your other dogs.

If you want a dog that is good for personal defense or want to do bite sports, absolutely get the dog that fits your needs. But make sure you get it from someone who knows what they are doing and not someone who is selling you dark sables with level backs.

And the same goes for any of these lines. Don’t get any showline dog unless you see the health testing on the parents or have an idea of what their temperaments are like. A lot of these American dogs are really afraid of things, and it’s one reason to do the outcross to the German showlines.  I’d rather not breed to a dog that is afraid of its own shadow, just because it’s a showline.

Anya, Quest’s late breeder and our dearest friend in the breed, once said, “Good dogs exist in all lines of this breed.”

I think we need to have this attitude rather than this attitude that give you permission to crap on other strains because they aren’t what you are looking for. I am impressed by really well-trained protection and bite sport dogs. I am also impressed by dogs that can do the full tending HGH test with a massive flock of sheep. And I am also impressed by the American dog that seems to float as it trots around the ring.

People need to relax a bit. Drop your insecurities. These dogs are awesome because they can bred and trained to fit what you need.

I don’t feel threatened by the existence of working line GSD. I don’t know why they feel so threatened by the existence of the show dogs. Indeed, much of our misunderstandings come from not asking and not listening, and it seems that so much of the subcultures around this breed is about not wanting to know anything about what the other people do or why they do it.

I suppose I liked eventually learning that the show dogs were not crippled freaks, and I have since come to embrace them.

It means that I had to eat a lot of crow.

It tastes better than you think.

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