Stwve

Thank you very much to all who responded. Everyone has provided great insites and this gives me a lot to think about. I believe my philosophy leans toward a middle ground between confirmation, working ability and a general ability to live in our current society. Being in the training industry, I have seen the limitations of breeding strictly to create high intensity working dogs, and have also been shocked by the knowledge that a particular dog does well in a show, considering their demeanor and physical characteristics. All in all, it seems that to be a quality breeder, one must be passionate about the dogs and be striving for matches to create specimens that best suit their trade.

I don't fully know the regulations around confirmation. Does that include hip and elbow scores? If confirmation is about overall health of the dog then external appearance should definitely not be the only criteria. Taking the GSD as a prime example. A show line shepherd could win for confirmation, but could have terrible hips and elbows which would quickly fail in the working environment.

Hi All, I am brand new to this forum and am very interested in hearing some thoughts on breeding dogs to win confirmation at shows vs breeding for working ability. This question comes because I have two or three minds about the situation. On one hand, keeping to the breed standards for confirmation are very important to keep the breed from losing important physical characteristics. On the other hand, I put a very high importance on a dogs ability to do the job they are meant to do. On the third hand, most dogs are going into pet homes so working ability may not be of the highest priority. For me as a trainer, it is quite obvious in the working world that 'show' dogs are very often not capable of performing thier working roles, and in fact may have serious medical defects, even though they are winning at the shows. Therefore, just because a dog wins at a show, doesn't mean it is an exceptional representation of the breed overall. In addition to this, living in Victoria, there is a huge issue when breeding for tactical roles in being able to actually test and compete to prove a dogs ability. This is due to the strict regulations around the activities associated with those roles (I.e. bite work). So I suppose I would like to know, for working dog breeders, how breeders of working dogs are testing their dogs abilities? And for confirmation oriented breeders, how much emphasis is being put toward confirmation over working ability. And lastly, which of these do people find to be the most important factor when it comes to breeding?