[ SHOWGSD-L ] Re: Movement
- From: "Pam Stoesser" <pkstoesser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <vicki.roye@xxxxxxxxx>, <ELG440@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:39:58 -0500
Just some random thoughts about this topic on a dreary Friday.
"Terrible movement" can only be seen if you know what good movement is
supposed to be. And it seems to me that you can only know what "good" and
"terrible" are by being a student of the Standard. I have shown National
videos to friends with only a passing interest in dogs and had them
generally be able to pick out the ones that 'cover the most amount of ground
with the least amount of effort' if they are shown at a moderate speed.
Breakneck speed makes it a whole lot harder!
The Standard says that the gait is "outreaching, elastic, seemingly without
effort, smooth and rhythmic, covering the maximum amount of ground with the
minimum number of steps' and "feet travel close to the ground". Watch a GSD
on an agility course or herding. Correct structure and bad structure are
both pretty evident there. I really admire those who are competitive in both
performance and conformation. For many folks however, it's an issue of both
time and money. Nonetheless, shouldn't we want our dogs to conform to the
Standard as much as possible, no matter the venue?
Reading the 'discussion' here where people with performance dogs have said
that their dogs shouldn't have to meet the basic requirements of the
Standard (the part about disqualifying faults) - somehow seems to imply that
the German Shepherds shown "just" in performance are somehow second-class
GSDs, which I devoutly hope NO ONE believes. I've seen some beautifully
correct dogs in the performance rings, some with and some without Ch in
front of their names. The purpose of the breed ring is to demonstrate the
physical conformance to the Standard with some basic indication of mental
soundness. I think the performance venues demonstrate more strongly the
mental conformance to the Standard.
Somewhere the buying public has gotten the idea that they also should have
something less than a conformed puppy. . . "oh, I don't want a show dog; I
just want a pet." . . . or "oh, I don't need a show dog; I just want to do
obedience." It's the same Standard. It's the same breed. It's the dog
that truly can "do it all" and it smart enough to do anything we ask of it.
It seems to me that everything we do with this breed depends on the
Standard. I talked to someone the other day that had bred 2 litters without
ever reading the breed Standard. I was stunned by that.
Don't we all want to see correct ("good" by definition) movement from this
breed? Don't we want to see correct temperament and character from this
breed? But we have to know what those are.
For me, it is painful to look at a GSD puppy that is so far from conforming
to the Standard that it looks like some other breed. It is even more
painful to see the lack of character that has 3-month old puppies lunging at
the end of a leash barking at everything that moves and trying to bite and
kill anything that comes in range of their jaws or trying to crawl up the
owner's back because it's so frightened.
There are no perfect GSDs. But I think we have to keep trying to conform to
the Standard.
Back to work. . .
-----Original Message-----
From: Vicki Roye
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2012 8:58 AM
To: ELG440@xxxxxxx
Cc: showgsd-l digest users
Subject: [ SHOWGSD-L ] Movement
With all due respect, there are a lot of breed champions who can show us
what terrible movement is all about.
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