clifton anderson wrote:
Hans, the statement was a metaphor, although there may be more than five ways to train dogs depending on the exactness you want to consider as a way. In my few years, I have seen and used Koehler, I have seen tug oriented training only, ball training only, clicker training, positive only, positve/negative reinforcing, off leash only training, food reward, and many other variations or combinations of these thing resulting in somewhat different approach.
My POINT was there is variance in all these things and nothing absolute. Btw, I titled a dog in 1980 in SCH with yank and crank primarily, in 2005 I titled a dog in SCH using food and tug as primary reinforcement. I obviously have used military methods in seventies. So my opinion on difference of breed is not based on my training method remaining the same. My opinion of the breed being different, along with many older German Judges and trainers I have talked to as well as old timers in this country who have trained all their life is not an isolated opinion. I have great respect for many of these people and KNOW their opinion/ perspective has value.
You see when I read or listen to an opinion I always consider the source. When I talk to a police trainer who has run a police academy from 1975 to 2008. An academy that graduates two classes ( 10 to 16) weeks for that long a period , when it comes to his opinion of the breed in general being serviceable for K9 work, I do not discard it because of what I read on iternet, especially if it resonates with my own experiences. Doesn't mean other opinions are invalid in their neck of woods, and I realize that, but unless these people are mentally challenged, I trust there is validity to their feeling based on the experiences they have. I also always factor in to my thinking things were done differently in Germany than say Czechaslovakia(sp) before the wall came down. The dogs changed a lot in just forty years though they aren't 100 kilometers apart. When it comes to Czech dogs, I give your opinion a lot of weight in my mind, when it comes to LE training I give Slamdunc' s opinion a lot of weight. Doesn't mean either of you are infallible but probably have a more extensive use and experience of subject matter currently.
I know police trainers I respect immensely that believe remote collars should be used with LE dogs, I know police trainers of equal experience and competence that believe remote collars are detriment. I respect both opinions because they are grounded in experience and successful application. I have no respect for a person who does not train police dogs tell me absolutely that remote collars cannot or should not be used in LE. ( I'm not talking about lawyers who may have legal reasons, I am talking about from dog training perspective) You see I have figured out that I am not going to live long enough to see and experience everything in life and dog training, but I have learned how to evaluate the credibility or validity of opinions,and likewise to not give undue credence to opinions of limited exposure. So absolute statements about dog training, like this way is better or worse, to me are very seldom credible even if they came from Fritz Beihler.
This is your forum, I try to give my perspective and learn from others, but I always assess content and source of what I read.
I agree with you but you have missed one point I mentioned in post above. The seller's selection of dogs for sale today and yesterday. I believe that that is a cause for your opinion that the GSD quality is going down.
Just to mention to you where I came from. I am watching GS dogs for 45 years and breeding, selling, training, buying and importing for 35 years. I talk to Jiri who does the same thing approximately for the same amount of time. We both value dogs mostly not as sport dogs but as a working dogs. Jiri as you know created the z Ps line as we know them today which, since z Pohranicni straze nomenclature does not exist I call Old Style Czech GSDs. And I know that today's dogs are of this strain and type are better than they ever were. I will not vouch for WG sport or US bred or any other strain or type of GSD.
I also firmly believe that the seller's selection process and subsequently buyers options are different now than they were in 80ies.
In early days 80ies and before when the dogs were imported from Germany or later from Czech for police purpose breeders were falling all over themselves to sell the best dogs to USA. It was a batch of honor and great advertisement if the breeder in Europe could tell that his dog is working in USA. In those days the amount of dogs imported for that purpose was a fraction.of today. The supply and demand got tilted towards the demand. Lesser and lesser dogs are being sold to LE . No papers, mix breeds, and so on. many unscrupulous sellers instead shooting the dog behind the barn the dog is sold to US for big bucks and seller is laughing all the way to bank. I know of mass purchasers who buy 30 -100 dogs per trip. And they make this trip several times a mo. They have agents who go around the country buying for them these dogs for laughable prices of as low like $500.
Not that is a reason for decline in quality of imports for LE. When we are selecting and locating quality dogs for LE it takes us 2-3 mo to locate and test the best 5-8 dogs. We go into great pains to supply quality from our stock and from people who we know and breed the dogs of our type. So I know what it takes to put together shipment of dogs. So if it takes us months to put together 5-8 dogs how come someone else can put together 2 -3 shipments of 30-100 dogs?!
It does not matter how much LE pays for dogs in USA! What matters is what the wholesale / buyers are paying to the sources in Europe. We pay good price for good dogs. It took me a lot of talking to convince my people to go the quality way rather than quantity way, but that is not the general tendency.
I thus believe that this is the reason you see lesser dogs being procured to LE and not general quality of the breed.
Statistics: Posted by Hans — Wed Sep 17, 2014 9:19 am