What the KC should do - GSDs

In my other breed the CPs the breed club decides if a particular mating can go ahead, if a breeder does not get permisson then the CMKU will not register the litter.

For GSD people:
Does the KC have guts and conviction? No

It is a private members club as well as a registration body lets see what others think they should do if they had a decent KC Chairman

I believe they should refuse registration of dogs with non standard colours that are purposely bred for this, if a blue or liver crops up in a litter it should have limited registration so progeny can not be registered
Any dog or bitch should have a minimum of 5 generations of low scoing ancestors either under BM average or A stamp normal or fast normal - to be classed as breed worthy and allow registration of progeny - anything with less should not be allowed to register progeny
Any dog or bitch should have max elbow score of 1 preferably 0 to allow registration of progeny
All available health tests that are available in Europe should become mandatory here if the dogs are to be used in breeding programmes - this could be phased in over a couple of years the acceptions to be progeny born from clear parents as they would be clear - tests such as PD, AF, DM, MDR1 etc
Ban importation of non standards colours for breeding programmes
Ban breeders from registering dogs when they are breeding from known epileptic producers
The Breed clubs should get involved with one of the major Unis to swab all GSDs to develop a genetic test for epilepsy, vets could do this routinely when they go in for yearly vacs

Do the non standard colours indicate a health problem?

One of my breeds comes in only one colour, any other can still be registered as "colour not recognised by the KC".

However this does not mean the dog cannot enter the gene pool or be shown.

Does this exist for the GSD?

the blues deffinately CDA not enough Livers in this country being deliberately mated to know as yet

they changed it in the UK recently to omit certain colours but these type of breeders will just use a different colour to register with - they cant be shown in KC shows but they hold there own and as you are aware the KC will register anything

Sorry if I'm being nieve but if the breed only comes in one colour would one of a different colour not be indicative of it not being pure? In which case it should not be registered anyway. Or are there other colours known to show up but listed as undesirable / not accepted?

It is impossible for the breed to be any colour other than what it is, however that is not a decision that has been concurred with by the KC, therefore we are stuck with what we have.

We have had breeders try to register them as "another colour" but because the enthusiasts keep an eye on all adverts we can tie these up to the registrations and these have been successfully changed. As of course you cannot advertise them as "rare colour" and charge loads of money for them AND register them as NOT a rare colour!

I would imagine this is much harder to do with a numerically very large breed such as the GSD unfortunately.

Gosh Wildmoor ....with all those dogs 'banned' from the gene pool the GSD would surely breed itself into a genetic cul de sac - you cannot ban huge numbers of dogs and still maintain low coefficients of inbreeding -

every breed needs to maintain as much diversity as possible and this sometimes means compromising on health test results or 'imperfect' colours etc - the alternative is simply not sustainable !

I just got around to reading the breed notes in OD last week and it was interesting to note Sheila Rankin's obsrvations on colour registrations.

She is struggling to understand how a dog can be registered as both Black & Tan AND Sable?!


Bi colour is also being requested as an addition to the standard.

She is also of the opinion that other than those agreed colours, all others should be registered as "non standard" eg blues, livers, etc.

I have to say I agree but would this align with say the WUSV and FCI or put is even further out on the margins?

Previous studies have shown that the GSD breed is one of the most diverse dog breeds as it has retained a large range of Dog Leucocyte Antigen (DLA) haplotypes and therefore represents a breed that has been less selectively in-bred than other dog breeds.