# Show line conformation



## edanzanders (Mar 23, 2015)

First let me start by saying I do not intend to rehash the old "show line vs work line" thread as in "which is better" or any bashing.

I am the owner of a work line x show line cross, both parents being Czech lines. My dog clearly takes after her work line mom, only a little bigger.

I have seen several "show line" dogs in my town, four to be exact, the last one just yesterday. I have noticed two things that made me doubt whether these dogs truly represent what show line conformation is about, or if they are simply poorly bred dogs. First I noticed that these dogs are much narrower at the rump than at the withers, as though they are very muscular up front, and tapered to bony rear ends. The second thing I noticed is that they did not seem to walk comfortably, as though their knees swing outward as the rear legs move backwards and what I can only describe as looking "cow-hocked" when standing still. When walking, they appear like they are pulling themselves forward using their front legs. Like they are "front wheel drive." When taking off on a sprint from a standing position, these dogs tended to hop rapidly with their back legs, as if waiting to build up enough speed and then assumed a more normal running gait.

My dog is just so different. Her rear is very muscular. You just can't see bone on the top of her rump. She doesn't narrow out toward her back. When she takes off on a sprint she goes from standing to full sprint, using her rear legs to drive herself forward from standing.

I am assuming that people are just buying poorly bred dogs. Then I just ran into a story out of the UK charging Crufts of awarding best in breed to poorly bred dogs. The article is: best of breed award | Daily Mail Online

The dog in the article, kind of exemplifies what I have seen on the street. Although maybe a little better. To anybody who is actively involved with the show line dogs, are dogs like this, winning awards at prestigious shows, fairly rare? I can kind of see how people could do their due diligence and still end up with a poorly bred dog, if they are blinded by various awards the breeding parents may have won. I'm also wondering what would cause a good judge to award a prize to a animal like that, knowing that it will only perpetuate a problem.

I obviously don't know enough about show lines. I'm also well aware that the press, especially PETA often exaggerate too.


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## carmspack (Feb 2, 2011)

pretty bad - but still not the worst 

its wake up time --- 

deformity --- I should say that the extremes in pug muzzles, flattened faces where eyeballs pop out of their sockets , bulldogs, too low stationed dachshund , basset hounds , all extremes -- need to be addressed.

you can get a clean bill of health , that is not an issue here. Some of the very deviant conformation is cruel 

the dog has poor feet -- just to add to the problems as far as breed excellence.

the Brits probably had better dogs when they were their home-bred "alsations" -- now they ARE SV show line dogs.

want to follow the discussion ? get the book
http://www.germanshepherds.com/foru...aws-illistrated-standard-german-shepherd.html


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## dogfaeries (Feb 22, 2010)

There are also two very different show lines. American and German. The show lines you see at Westminster are not the show lines you see at Crufts


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## Jenny720 (Nov 21, 2014)

Any extemes weather in show or sport it is easy to create an imbalance either mentally or physically even both.


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## wyominggrandma (Jan 2, 2011)

The GSD that was at crufts was horrific. If you watched how it moved, the front was moving and the rear was barely able to keep up, looked crippled. It could barely walk. I can see why people were upset, if that was best of breed, I would have hated to see the rest of the GSD. 
It seems the show world keeps going to the extreme when breeding in everything. Border Collies have coats like Rough Collies anymore, dogs are getting bigger and bigger or smaller and smaller. Breed to the fads that are winning seems to be the rule of thumb, doesn't matter if its correct


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## Jenny720 (Nov 21, 2014)

Hard to watch. Im not sure what is going on at crufts. Maybe all the heat and focus on the judges maybe they will be forced to make some changes. Im sure extreme will always be around though if it gets them what they are lookin for.


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## carmspack (Feb 2, 2011)

I bet you anything that dog was SV German show lines. 
The Brits never had this deviation when they had their own version "alsation" , which was as different as American show lines or DDR lines through impossible quarantine regulations - isolation of genetics.

that dog was a horrible specimen , bad feet , hinged back , I am not even sure the temperament was that good --


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## CiElBie (Mar 6, 2016)

I was told they indeed were trying to go with the german SV style dogs, someone pointed it out to me with the handling style...

I believe the RSPCA got involved, not just with the GSD but mentioned the Pekingese too (which couldnt even make it half way around the arena before needing to be carried)

I feel sorry for the owner though  Imagine everyone saying how horrible your dog looked after winning at such a prestigious event...


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## Nigel (Jul 10, 2012)

If this (crufts) was the "norm" for GSD's I would never have one, poor dog.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Yes both of the dogs in the Crufts GSD best of breed were WGSL dogs, and awful. Sorry. I guess Germany was keeping their best dogs at home, and the people that came looking to buy were given the worst. Or, they are breeding WGSL dogs poorly in England. 

I really don't know if Czech dogs have a show line. England used to, and yes, they were different than the GSLs, as are the Australian, American and Canadian show line dogs. 

My guess is that the Czech dogs breeding to a standard similar to the SV are being shown for conformation as well as working ability -- the German Working Line dogs often/usually have show-ratings as well. But that is just a guess. If it is true, then expect the dogs that are considered show-line to start looking different than the WL dogs from that area. 

I think the SV needs to improve their top line and improve the cow hocking. There are nice dogs out there, I wish they would get put up more often.


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## Gwenhwyfair (Jul 27, 2010)

I'm not an expert, but having a few SV shows under my belt now, in my humble newbie/not newbie horse educated/conformation opinion...

The dogs I've seen personally now at the SV shows here in the U.S. *generally* do not look this extreme.

There seems to be two top lines that just are too extreme (for my taste as well) the TRUE roach where the spine is actually higher then the withers and this dog, which has basically two top lines, it's actually rather level until about midway and then has a hinged effect and breaks downwards. I posted an article by a SV judge about this, where he also disagrees with it.

It seems that these two top lines (which should be faulted imho) are hanging on more in countries outside of Germany. She also seemed to be more angulated hip-stifle-hock.

The shows I was at in January and March the dogs didn't look like Horand, but they didn't look like the female in this article either and a couple of top kennels were showing.

One of our board members showed her male who is a nice, in standard, moderate male and the judge who was from Germany really liked him.

So the good news is, it's not as bad across the board as some of the examples we see.


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## sebrench (Dec 2, 2014)

Gwenhwyfair said:


> There seems to be two top lines that just are too extreme (for my taste as well)....It seems that these two top lines (which should be faulted imho) are hanging on more in countries outside of Germany.


Hi Gwenhwyfair, I was just curious what those two lines are, though if that's not appropriate to post in a public forum, just ignore me. I wouldn't want to pick apart anyone's dog, of course.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

sebrench said:


> Hi Gwenhwyfair, I was just curious what those two lines are, though if that's not appropriate to post in a public forum, just ignore me. I wouldn't want to pick apart anyone's dog, of course.


 I took it to mean, the one top line being the one with the true roach -- back above the withers; and the other to be the top line that hinges/visibly breaks half way down the back. 

I don't think she means blood lines. 

I agree, I don't like either of these either, but I also think that there are a lot of nice looking GSL dogs out there. People find an example of one of these, and say, "See, see, they are deformed!!!"


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## sebrench (Dec 2, 2014)

selzer said:


> I took it to mean, the one top line being the one with the true roach -- back above the withers; and the other to be the top line that hinges/visibly breaks half way down the back.


Oops, missed that!


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## Gwenhwyfair (Jul 27, 2010)

This. Exactly. Bad examples get sensationalized. Maybe that's good because it helps highlight extremes which should not be rewarded. It's bad because people don't see enough dogs to know if it's truly across the board or one jugde or one kennel.

I was just looking at pictures this morning from the last two SV shows I was at. All the top dogs really were moderate. 

There was this trend cropping up with the huge bear heads....  That seemed to be driven by the Asian fanciers. Thankfully that's not taking over as much as I worried it would. 

Granted these were local shows. But still, some bigger U.S. kennels were there though, von lotta, global haus, von den oher tannen. Their males were a bit heavier and more masculine but no big bulky bear heads. 

Love 'em or hate 'em at least be fair and look at the big picture. Don't judge the entire line by a dog in the UK, or Asia or China. 

There are breeders and judges out there pushing for and rewarding moderate conformation.

btw....The modern WL dogs don't look like Horand either, just sayin'. 






selzer said:


> I took it to mean, the one top line being the one with the true roach -- back above the withers; and the other to be the top line that hinges/visibly breaks half way down the back.
> 
> I don't think she means blood lines.
> 
> I agree, I don't like either of these either, *but I also think that there are a lot of nice looking GSL dogs out there. People find an example of one of these, and say, "See, see, they are deformed!*!!"


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## Xeph (Jun 19, 2005)

> Love 'em or hate 'em at least be fair and look at the big picture. Don't judge the entire line by a dog in the UK, or Asia or China.
> 
> There are breeders and judges out there pushing for and rewarding moderate conformation.
> 
> btw....The modern WL dogs don't look like Horand either, just sayin'.


All of this.

I have a picture of one of my puppies at 12-14 weeks, and she was the poster child of a cripple. She was so, SO icky.

She looks absolutely nothing like that now, but people could easily use her as an example of poor breeding/an example as the whole of AmLines (which would be inaccurate).


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## wolfstraum (May 2, 2003)

carmspack said:


> I bet you anything that dog was SV German show lines.
> The Brits never had this deviation when they had their own version "alsation" , which was as different as American show lines or DDR lines through impossible quarantine regulations - isolation of genetics.
> 
> that dog was a horrible specimen , bad feet , hinged back , I am not even sure the temperament was that good --



the name and link to pedigree was on facebook - yep - a V rated SV dog - I figured it was an AKC Specialty dog - sad - the SV dogs are going the same way as the AKC!!!!


Lee


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## shasha1020 (May 26, 2015)

Thank you EdanZanders for sharing the article. It was wonderful to read about such an outcry against the continuation of showing and breeding deformed gsds!!! It gave me hope that the integrity of the breed can be turned around and saved. Here are links to petitions started as a result of this outcry: https://www.change.org/p/the-kennel...ssively-sloping-backs-in-german-shepherd-dogs
https://www.change.org/p/kennel-club-no-more-german-shepherds-with-sloping-backs


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## shasha1020 (May 26, 2015)

Carmen, thanks for letting me know about this. I was excited and filled with hope that this might be a turning point for our beloved breed. I loved the wording you used..."wake up call". Let's pray it is. Check out the two links I posted for petitions others have going at change.org.


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