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Originally Posted by yukidomari
Excellent posts Ina.
The difference between sports such as SchH and actual working like personal protection, K9, etc is very different. And I have learned from K9 handlers here that many dogs that excel in SchH are not suitable for actual work.. such as, poor judgment, low nerve, excitable, high prey drive.
Many GSDs from certain regions have been criticized for being overly sporty, which to me is just as bad as overly concentrated on show. Some friends who have dogs in SchH classes say some sections of it are just 'glorified games of tug of war'.
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The German police will fully agree with that, they face the same problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yukidomari
I very much like Hanka's post too. At least in the countries whose dog fancy I generally know, kennels are usually divided quite clearly between "show" (multiple show Champions, etc) and "work/sport" (concentration on some type of work/emphasis on character- even if not real work). So people usually pick between one or the other. For example, you probably would not get a show Australian Shepherd if you had a farm for it to work on, because it would very likely not be able to do, or be able to do well, the work. This is independent of training or handling.
There is very rarely a kennel that concentrates on both at the same time, those are considered excellent kennels. It's interesting to hear that this isn't so in Czech Republic.
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Luckily our breed isn´t that divided yet you will be able to work with most dogs but if you only want to go for Schutzhund-sports you will be better of with some Czech lines.
I find it much better to keep the breed on a level with dogs that are able to work and have a good exterieur. And I sometimes have the impression that on both sides it is often an excuse for using dogs that are not good for one of this two sides. Especially many so called working dogs are very bad in exterieur and their working abilitiy is used as a reason for breeding them, very often their abilities are not over avarage level. And vice versa of course.