 Arguably one of the greatest moving GSD's of all time - Dingo  German Sieger of the 60's who like Dingo excelled in his movement - Bodo  The worlds ultimate trotting canine - Gray Wolf  Contemporary GSD Show Dog with lumbar spine downward bend   
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At the last Specialist GSD show I judged there were 16 open bitches exhibited in the class.The statistics of the measurements in the order of presentation 'height followed by chest depth' was as follows: 60cm - 27cm 58cm - 26cm 60cm - 27cm 60cm - 27cm 61cm - 29cm 62cm - 29cm 61cm - 28cm 60cm - 26cm 59cm - 28cm 62cm - 30cm 61cm - 27cm 60cm - 27cm 60cm - 27cm 60cm - 27cm 61cm - 29cm 60cm - 27cm Not by coincidence the V1 bitch was the smallest in the class at 58cm. Not a huge sample, but in my opinion it can be taken as a fair indication of the average size of bitches pretty well everywhere, that is most stand on the maximum size. Very good chest depth to foreleg ratio average.   Because I often make comment about overangulation of the hindquarters in the GSD I get asked to provide a visual of a real dog rather than a drawing to show what I consider to be optimum hind angulation in the GSD. There are many dogs that are not overangulated, too many though are overshadowed in the show ring by dogs that are, and that is a tragedy for the breed. So here is a photo of a current highly placed V dog that in my opinion displays optimum hindquarter angulation and I refer to the relative lengths of the femur and tibia and the length of the hock. For a trotting dog these elements give the dog an efficient high hip and knee position, a well angled tibia, effective leverage and stable hindquarters in movement.
A trait that I noticed this year particularly in Italy is a ''developing trend'' to dogs that are not oval shaped in their rib cage - right side - but slab sided - left side. When the rib cage is compressed from oval to slab the chest is inevitably deep, the distance between the elbows too close and when viewed from the front the feet can point straight ahead but more point in a 'slightly east west' position. The slab sided rib cage, close standing drawn in position and slight east west stance can be seen here against the stick and the angle the stick has assumed against the feet. Like I said - early days!
Not that I saw much evidence of it at the German Sieger Show but if all Specialist judges were to insist that from Juniors up during the individual assessment dogs must stand with the foreside extended hock plumb, the farside hock in a slight rearward position and the up and back and side gaiting assessment done free of double handling it would be a great start. Handler here was Craig Rice from the UK. Perfect score 10/10  |
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