White Shepherds

I dont know too much before, like I said, but I am in the military, and the kinds of service dogs the military are looking for have to be high drive....you need an animal who not only enjoys the searching but also wont give up. I am medical service corps....dogs that have a high drive and are willing to look for people for as long as possible save lives. I am hoping to train my puppy for rescue missions along that line...I think the military could sorely use a search and rescue dog with each ambulance platoon. but again, high drive = very important...

And on a second note....for christ sakes...they're all the same...the same internal workings, the same structure...some dogs will always be more high drive than others...some will be more lazy...you will see that in both WGSD and GSD. One of my Captains worked with and bred german shepherds, and his direct quote was, 'I've worked with everything but a pure black, and its pretty much ding, they're all the same.' so you can breed high drive and temperment into pretty much any animal...alot of that is dependant on the breeder....it just so happens that most of the people I know who I have mentioned the high drive/intelligence....it may just be that they are all doing something right.

Pretty much this comes down to truth and fact, we all have our own truths - what we believe is real, and then there is the fact....what we know is real....our truth is that the WGSD is awsome, yours is that it is not so much....the actual facts....we dont know for sure because there has never been any hard data or testing in a controlled situation. I actually looked for something in the Virginia Tech Journal Database...the entire database...and I could find nothing. Until there is resaearch done like that, they are all the same I guess. (mmm, that might be a good graduate thesis paper though)

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Oh well. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

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Exactly, trust me Ifeel your pain. You keep claiming they have more drive and more brains, and I said surely they'll be winning in avenues that test drive and brains, as well as temperment and nerve, but you like to skirt that every time it comes up, so we'll just leave it as that, your dogs have never been proven to work. PSD's has meant police service dog forever. In working circles you say PSD, and that's exactly what it means, my gosh do a simple google search and tell me what you get Psychiatric Service dog or Police service dog???

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JackFrost, don't you think the lack of the white shepherds in these trails could just as easily be due their human counterparts' prejudice against them as it is due to any supposed defects in the dogs?

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It could, but surely if they were producing such drive and temperment and structure and brains, we'd see them much more often in working circles. When good ones come along, they're notpassed over because they are white. We scoop them up as fast as we can. Fact of the matter is, there aren't very many. Mainly what you see is lots of talk and not much show.

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FWIW, my dad does has a lot of say in selecting dogs for area law enforcement and he is searching more actively for Belgians or white shepherds.

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You could PM me as well, I may know him, but I can't say we get any requests for whites, Belgians yeah because they're cheaper, but not whites. I'd like to know what LEO's are looking for that? Besides the fact that they like the color white.

I've always heard them called K-9s (pronounced kay nines)...the units and the dogs themselves. Its probabaly different depending on where you live.

and I think the reason you dont see much more of them because it is a recessive gene and there just arent that many compared to their colored brothers.

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Originally Posted by Ceph

I've always heard them called K-9s (pronounced kay nines)...the units and the dogs themselves. Its probabaly different depending on where you live.

and I think the reason you dont see much more of them because it is a recessive gene and there just arent that many compared to their colored brothers.

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yes- you are right! It is a recessive gene..

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Originally Posted by Ceph

I've always heard them called K-9s (pronounced kay nines)...the units and the dogs themselves. Its probabaly different depending on where you live.

and I think the reason you dont see much more of them because it is a recessive gene and there just arent that many compared to their colored brothers.

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now just think about that, it IS a recessive and a recessive that was selected AGAINST till almost no whites where showing up in normal litters. So to create whites consitently, which is what white breeders do, do you think they took your average working GSD and got some whites by accident and sell them that way, or do you think they took the ever shrinking pool of GSD's with white genes left and did lots of breeding back on themselves to consistently get white??

actually I got a white out of a sable and black and tan breeding..

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Originally Posted by borzoimom

actually I got a white out of a sable and black and tan breeding..

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Which is quite common.
Nicole

yea it shocked me thats for sure... lol..

again, back to horses.....but I have seen friesians (pure black dominant gene) mated to other Black horses throw palamino babies (golden body, cream hair)....hec, I even saw a chesnut friesian, which is said to be impossible genetically....dont ever discount mother nature...she always has the neatest tricks up her sleeve. In horses chesnuts are the most recessive of the colors...but all I ever see in my program here are chesnuts. neither of our stallions are chesnuts....not too many of our mares are chesnuts...they must be coming from somewhere....

and its very possible the same happened with WGSDs...not saying it did....its just possible....you can typically figure out the parents genetics by the time they've had their second get....so it wouldn't be too hard to breed colored dogs to whelp whites even if it was just two or three a litter...not hard at all. Thus your genetic base starts to expand as far as the whites go.

My borzoi breeder had Black pearl too.. same thing...

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Originally Posted by jackfrost

and simple genetics and observation would tell you that after about 30 years of breeding gsd's White's no longer showed up in the litters.

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Whites may not have showed up, but that was only by certain luck -- a white carrier will breed a carrier who will breed a carrier and then another carrier to breed another carrier, and so on. So there have always been carriers.

Same reason I don't know if Visa carries tervuren. It's unlikely, but still possible. Won't know until I breed her to a terv, or a terv carrier (Solo's daddy is a terv carrier -- wouldn't have have been just awful is he was the only one AND a terv! I so badly wanted a groen lol).

I got two tervs out of my belguim.. took me forever to get them right..

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Originally Posted by jackfrost

You could PM me as well, I may know him, but I can't say we get any requests for whites, Belgians yeah because they're cheaper, but not whites. I'd like to know what LEO's are looking for that? Besides the fact that they like the color white.

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Actually, my dad does not prefer the color white. When he is taking color into consideration, he tends to prefer darker dogs as K-9 units, since they tend to intimidate suspects more and since people can't pick them out as easily if they're trying to go in during darkness and all... but he really looks more for temperament, soundness of body, etc. when selecting dogs, and for that he has more confidence in Belgian Malinois, Belgian Tervurens, and White shepherds. As far as being cheaper, are you sure??? Looking for breeders and ads in my area right now, the Belgians seem a nice chunk of change more expensive.

My father has mainly selected dogs for several Sheriff's offices (which also work in the local academy), search and rescue, the county jail, a couple special "school k-9 units" that work the public schools only, and Methamphetamine Enforcement Teams.

Oh, forgot to add...

I very, very, very rarely give out my surname online, so I don't think I'll be PM'ing you my dads name to see if you know him. How about you just send me the names of all the cops you know in Cali and I'll tell you if you know him ;) :D .

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Originally Posted by Sophist

but he really looks more for temperament, soundness of body, etc. when selecting dogs, and for that he has more confidence in Belgian Malinois, Belgian Tervurens, and White shepherds. As far as being cheaper, are you sure??? Looking for breeders and ads in my area right now, the Belgians seem a nice chunk of change more expensive.

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Obviously i'm dealing with someone that has no idea or experience in what they're talking about. Belgians are about half of what a good shepherd is easily, they aren't even close in price. I think its safe to say you've never imported, never bought, never trained any of these dogs. When you do then get back to me. If his GSD's are that bad, he needs to find some new suppliers. It's a rare rare day when a white passes the testing to become a PSD, and its even more rare for Mal's and such to be more expensive than a good GSD. SOunds like he needs to find some new people to work with.

Its obvious i'm stepping on your friend's toes, so if you don't want to believe what i'm saying, go to some real working sites and ask them. Come back and tell me what they say, or just keep it to yourself, it doens't really matter.
http://www.workingdogforum.com/

http://www.uspcak9.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl

http://www.leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/cfrm