Hock Walking. (forgive the detail and length of post) Had a conversation with a new GSD judge years ago. We used to live near her and she raised Wolf Hounds. Then she started showing them, then judging them, and then wanted to extend her breeds and so took the GSD test. We met at a show on the coast and renewed old acquaintances and she sat with us at the GSD ring and started in. "I will not award anything to those hock-walking cripples. Look at them. They can hardly move." I was ready, because I had said the same thing to a lady many years before. Here name was Cappy Pottle. Cappy simply turned to me and told me to hook up her dog. I did. Then she went out a hundred yards of so and told me to hold him, and don't let him move. Then she called him. There I was like a baby holding back a freight train - down the field I went trying to regain my footing and finally the snap on the lead broke. I'd had GSD's all my life, but had never felt anything like that before. His name was Quick, but it should have been Power House. So we went to the house and she showed me a video and explained the transmission of power. Side gate is not about aesthetics, it is about the transmission of power. The maximum power is gained by being in contact with the ground most of the time, reaching out far in front and pulling back and following through past the forward movement of the hind quarter. The hind quarter similarly reaches forward under the dog past the front moving to the rear, and then propels the dog forward with a smooth forward motion, ending with the hock opened and extending to the rear. The front foot should hit the ground at its furthest extension to the front without having to come down to find the ground (commonly called 'lifting'). The rear foot should move smoothly to its rear extension, opening the hock but not extending upward at the end of its full motion (commonly called 'kicking up'). The objective of this range of motion is to transmit the maximum amount of ground-covering power with a minimum of steps. You can see it from the side, the front, the rear and you can feel in in the leash if you are handling. The term 'hock walking' is a term usually used by those who do not understand the transmission of power. It comes from the appearance of the rear hock extending well under the dog as the rear foot grabs the ground for its rearward thrust. At that point, the hock appears to be on the ground, unless you look very carefully to find that it is almost but not on the ground. It is simply the range of motion available to the well-structured dog who can use every joint and ever part of every leg to transmit power forward. Yes there are dogs who have faulty rears, and some whose hocks hit the ground. You can tell from the callouses on the hocks. Some dogs are lifty, wasting motion, and others have locked hocks that do not allow the rear to move fluidly with the front. But more commonly it is a prejudice by those who have come to prefer the upright square dog who simply cannot move with smooth power. Our lady friend and new GSD judge watched for a minute and started counting steps. Sure enough the dogs she was faulting were taking far fewer steps than the lumbering dogs she had preferred. She changed her mind after getting on the lead of one of our dogs. Darn I love a great moving dog. So forgive the length of this post. I like to talk about movement - a lot! ----------------- With regards to overangulation; nowhere in the Standard does it say or imply that dogs should walk with their hocks on the ground. This is a development that has occurred over decades of breeding...."a little angulation is a good...so a lot must be better". There is nothing wrong with the Standard and nothing needs to be changed; its the breeders that produce these animals and judges that put them up either A. because it is all they see and all they have to choose form or B.they think sidegait is more important than everything else in the Standard which is not correct "Faults of gait, whether from front, rear or side, are to be considered very serious faults". That is a completely different issue from changing the Standard to accommodate coat and color variations. Cindy On Monday, September 1, 2014 10:54 PM, Tina Klahn <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Carolyn, You kind of just proved a couple of my points. I very much refer to the standard because temperament is critical in the standard, but I see very few dogs that truly own the ground they stand on. I repeat, please point me to where the standard calls for the drastic slope in the top line seen in modern ASL GSDs (45 or more degrees). What about hocks on the ground when standing? All things I see in some of the top winning dogs that, in theory, should be top representatives of the standard right? You're right that health isn't in the standard, but that should really a given, shouldn't it? Again, I just don't see where color or coat length are so important compared to those things. Maybe ASL GSDs could benefit from the wGSD lines if nothing more than the expansion of the gene pool. If you don't want to breed to a white, that's completely your choice. Others may appreciate the addition of lines. To me, the fears of white spotting, etc (which to my knowledge really have nothing to do with the masking gene) aren't valid. If someone can point me in the direction of research proving the masking gene and white spots are the same thing, I'll happily apologize. :) On a side note, if the posts have not been attacks on one another, though I guess brutality is in the opinion of the reader, then why has admin had to shut so many threads down? I wish the people who replied to me in private, commending my words, would have done so public because there have been many. I expressed what many have been thinking and just didn't want to risk posting. Tina > ------------------------------ > > Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2014 22:25:25 -0500 > From: <marhaven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Subject: Re: Observances > > Having missed seeing the brutal attacks.....all I can say is that this list of problems would scare me enough to have second thoughts about getting a sickly, spooky, dying GSD from dishonest "crazy house" breeders.... and their Club. > None of these problems listed has to do with the Standard, but is the actual responsibility of breeders of the GSD and those of us who post about it. > > Genetic testing for color is hardly going to solve the problem either. > > Carolyn marhaven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx > www.marhaven.com ================================================== ========================== POST is Copyrighted 2014. 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