[yukidomari]

Excellent posts Ina.

There is a big difference between sports such as SchH and actual working like personal protection, K9, etc. 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'.

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.