SV Abandons Work Test for Breeding
Jim Engel
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From the beginning, for more than a century, German Shepherd breeding was working dog breeding, built generation upon generation on the foundation the Schutzhund trial. This universal working test as a breeding prerequisite, every pup an incipient police dog precisely because both parents, and their parents and grandparents before them, had been proven worthy on the trial field. This was the core, the essence of the genius of von Stephanitz. His personal force, his unstinting effort, drove the breed from the inception of the studbook in 1899 to an unprecedented wave of success as a police, military and home companion dog. By 1914, on the eve of war, thousands were in homes across Germany, and thousands more were trained and standing ready to serve in the looming catastrophe, defining the modern war and police dog in the process. In the aftermath this popularity went home with the troops and within a decade this German Shepherd became predominant throughout the world.
Now this legacy has been shamelessly repudiated, for the SV, the German mother club, has abandoned the working requirement, the foundation. The reason for this is quite simple. The ornamental show lines have become so physically grotesque and morally deficient that the pretense of police potential has become absurd, a laughingstock. Fake special trials for the ornamental dogs with a cadre of hopelessly lenient judges are no longer sustainable.
As a fig leaf the SV has conjured up an insipid, pathetic "Breeding Predisposition Test" (ZAP) as a lame alternative, a "second route to breeding approval" to spare the ornamental lines the ongoing embarrassment of going through watered down back door trials. They have crossed the Rubicon and in so doing brought everlasting shame on themselves and the breed.
Thus this long standing but recently in decline working foundation, the essence of this noble breed, has finally been repudiated, abandoned, made "optional." This German Shepherd is no longer to be a police dog or even a working dog, for generations the national pride of Germany, but just another generic offering alongside the Golden and Labrador retrievers as the lowest common denominator in an increasingly prosaic German pet market.
This can come as no surprise to even the most obtuse, has been the imminent tragedy, the dark, ominous cloud hovering on the horizon for a generation and more. But the stark reality of this treachery, this betrayal of trust, is nevertheless deeply traumatic for all of us who have come to have such admiration and respect for this noble breed, this legacy.
Today every German with even a glimmer of empathy for this lost century of heritage must hang their head in grief and shame.
Background
The purpose of a working breed is and must always be to preserve and protect in a formal way the cultural heritage of a canine landrace, a locally or nationally adapted variety of a species to its natural and cultural environment, that is the prevailing physique and cognitive and moral adaptations to his work. This is the sacred obligation of the national clubs, particularly in the motherland. A more complete explanation is available here:
Jack of All Trades?
This atrocity has been imminent since at least 2012 when the SV abolished their Schutzhund trial system, the foundation of their working heritage, in favor of the FCI IPO program. Although this has been their long term agenda they have been surreptitiously easing it in through the back door, with information deep in the bowels of their convoluted web site:
SV Web Site
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The alternative way to breeding: SV Zuchtanlageprüfung (ZAP)
Association for German Shepherds (SV) e.V.
"Along with the introduction of the character assessment, the Verein für Deutsche Schäferhunde (SV) e.V. has developed an independent examination regulation that offers a second way to breeding approval for the breeder as an alternative to the FCI examination regulations (IPO). The working part of the ZAP is divided into the areas of nose work in the variants chosen by the dog handler tracking or browsing work, obedience and defense exercises. The aim of the newly introduced ZAP is to maintain and specifically promote the versatility in the breed and the existing working dog characteristics." (Emphasis added.)
This appears to mean that the dog is not required to demonstrate any protection potential at all.
Glossary
Orginizations and Conflicts
Legacy Lost, the Other Breeds
The Americans
Style and Opinion Sports
Has Sport Subverted the Trial?
How We Play the Game
Commercialization of Schutzhund
The Mother State
World Unions Rising
AWDF, Stillborn American Elite
Supreme Authority of the Canine World?