Dog Shows experience 2010.

                                  „health dangers of  the „new type of Dobermann”

   During 2010, I took my Dobermanns on many (more then 50), different level Dog Shows around the world (Hungary, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, San Marino  Austria etc.) Please, read about my experiences of the judging on those Shows.

At the begining I’d like to remind you of the main aim of Dog shows and dog judging.

The original goal of all Dog shows and judgement is to help the breeders step by step to make their breed better and better, to reproduce the healthiest, more useful and more beautiful dogs.

 To obtain uniform decision during the judgement all breeds have a standard, precise and a scientific description of the ideal type of the breed.

 Under the judgement we have to compare the dogs with this standard and we have to assess the correspondency beetwen the different regions of it’s body to the standard.

 Finaly all dog gets a qualifiquation and from the best they choose the Winner. Usually the Winner is the dog, who shown more correspondency to the standards. The aim of this process is to reproduce the dogs closest to the ideal type (standard), but in practice its not even close!

Usaually those who are judging, don’t know enough about the standard.

There are others who are in lack of professional knowledge to well interpret the description of the standards.

And at the end the most dangerous kind of all judges, is the „specialists”, who think that they are above all, so they can ignore the standard descriptions.

Basicly we can make 3 groups of judges:

-          special –who are judging only one breed

-          well educated „all round”- who are judging many breeds (usualy they are from occidental countries)

-          average „all round” - who are judging many breeds (unfourtunetly corrupt and biased many times)

 The standard descriptions are compulsory for all, but my experince is that a major part of the special judges interpret too inaccurate the prescriptions of the standard.

Mostly they are judging about their taste or about the interests of the breeder groups close to them.

This is a very dangerous thing because for a long time on the biggest Dobermann shows the judges are the same 3 or 4 people, they are allowed to choose the main reproduction dogs, so that their own taste are represented in the next generations of dogs.

 This „new type of Dobermann” are deviating in many points, from the official standard!

 Unfourtunetly those judges „playing God” usually aren’t real professionals (veterinarians or zootechnicians) so that the deviations conform they own tastes  have some health dangers with visible signs on the „new type Dobermann”.

Let me show the summary of this below:

1.      Loosing of the dryness: the Dobermann are caracterized by power and elegance, but differing most of the other dog breeds, they are distinguished by their dryness and stifness (the skin aline very close to the body).

We can see more and more sleazy Dobermanns with dangling skin  (mainly on their neck and head) About these health risks in the next.

2.      Big head : the new non-conforming trend with the standards is to make bigger and bigger heads with a pronunced stop in the Dobermann, this is one of the biggest health danger of all. The big head is almost covered (more skin and interstitial tissue) and the eyes gets round, this leads to that they are more easily to have entropium, extropium.

Those deviations cause cronic conjunctivitis and usually can be healed only by chirurgical intervention. It’s true that aren’t life-threatening leasions but for a working dog could be very hard. The other problem with the big head is the flashy jaw with a plaited skin, those conditions improve the pustular demodicosis occurency (bleding and mattery acnees on the ventral part of the jaw).

3.      Convergent upper headline: the Dobermann’s upper headline is almost paralel  ( the longitudinal axis of the muzzle and the skull are paralel). The divergent upper headline is well reconized by most of the judges but many of them can’t make difference beetwen the good parallel head and the convergent (pointer type) head. This pointer type head is in all other breeds –on the Dobermann as well- is a major fault!

This kind of head give a little bit of agressive and „stupid looking” expression for the dog. This isn’t a health problem, but it decreases the aesthetical effects and the general presence of the Dobermann.

4.      Short, thick almost skinny neck: Unfourtunately the intention to reach bigger and bigger heads entails the short, thick neck what decreases significantly  the elegance of the dog.

In vain, if we have a perfect head and a perfect body if they are attached by a short, thick neck,  the dog looses its harmony.

Of course this isn’t a health problem neither, but in the general presence of the dog it is a serious failure.

5.      Over angulation:lately we can see more overangulated –german sheeper feeling Dobermann (include IDC Class winner!). In turn the elegant consistence of the Dobermann are determinated by a little bit opened angles:105-110 degrees in scapulo-humeral, 130 degrees in femuro-tibial –knee and 140 degrees in tibio-metatarsal-hocks-articulations. The  overangulation (see the german sheeperds) enlarges the danger of hip displasia (HD)!

6.      The loose back, top line: I saw on many Dobermann (special on italian and russian dogs) when they are positioned (standing) the dog has a perfect top line but during the movement their back  „detaches”  in 3 parts, the withers, the back and the croup are moving separate. To overlie this fault the owners make their dog overconditioned, and because of this, their Dobermann (special the males) look more stiff (some of them look like Rottweilers).

The overcondition have a direct health danger, because the heart have to work much harder, this can leed  to cardiomyopathie(CMP) and earlie death !  

7.      Short legs: the legs become primarly in russian Dobermann (Pimms breedline!) significantly shorter, (someof themlooks like a gnome!) as if it is a part of another dog, distrubs the harmony and decreses the elegance!

8.      Lax carpal articulation: originally the Dobermann had straight, columnar forelimbs, today is admited 10 degrees in carpal junction (in other words this improves the „german sheeperd”feeling of the Dobermann), but someof them have more then 10 degrees what decrese the working capacity of the dog and improves the vulnerability.

9.      Cow position:one of the biggest faults of all is the hindlimbs, very often it is linked with too narrow pelvis and distal rotated knees.

This deviation can cause an enormous lose of working capacity of the dog , though many „special judges” ignore this severe fault (we can see many IDC, AIAD class winner Dobermann showing this fault!!)

10. Soft feet: the Dobermann feet are short with the toes tightly together and arched to the top (cat feets), though we can see lots of winner Dobermann with soft, open and flat foot! In the working breeds this is a major fault because it enormously increases the vulnerability!

This is very easy to judge, you will only have to look on the nails, if they are too long, the dog is walking on its rim instead of the top of the fingers!

11. Sloping croup and too low set tail:  some of the judges doesn’t pay enough attention to these faults, but besides the decrease of their esthetical value, togheter with overangulation these can increase the hip displasia danger!

The competency of some „all round” judges providing from the Estern Block Countries, but some from Western countries as well, is questionable.

I met a swedish judge who was the owner of an elevator company (not really professional!), and his approach towards the dogs was as unprofessional, as that during a show, one of the dogs bit him! In top of all some „all round” judges providing from Estern Block Countries are corrupt and biased!

I don’t think that only a veterinarian or a zootechnican (livestock) engineer can make a  good dog show judge, but the level of knowledge that some of the judges reached on a few weeks-months courses are not to be compared with several years of university study!

 Many of the judges basicly don’t know the optimal distances, angles, directions  of judging and the right expressions to describe the different regions of the body. Many times its more likely that the special judges are judging the owner not the dog!

They collect informations about who’s are the leading breeders in the respective breed and „not to make mistake”  they pronounce winners from these kennels, not the ones where dogs are closer to the standard!

I had better experinces as well, with good educated „all round” judges usually from West European countries. Most of them are „the palping” type judge who don’t like the „buffoonery” from outside of the ring, they take their role very seriously and before judging they read the standard of the respective breed, so they are judging confidently and pronounce winners amongst the dogs closer to the standard.

In summary:

 In my opinion a dog who is able to win at many different judges, is more value then others who won only 1 or 2 special big shows with the same  „special-friendly” judges.

Unfourtunetly the reality differs, only the big show winner dogs(IDC. AIAD), specialy the males (with 4-500 monte) have big influence on  the next generations.

On this way our lovely breed the Dobermann is in gravely danger, because from a long time the same 1-2 judges (whom, if its their interest, ignores the prescriptions of the standard!) make the final decision of who are the winners of the Big Shows gonna be!

The few „top dogs” (male) selected by them are define the next generations , because the breeders know very well that they can sell the puppies better if the they make a monte with one of the „selected top males”. If those top males have any big faults (deviations from the standard) thru the great numbers of the monte this will struck greatly the Dobermann population!   

If someone is questioning my competency: I’m a pet specialist veterinarian with 25 years of experince in praxis and I have been keeping Dobermanns for 34 years!

            2010-12-09                                           Dr. Kocs Mihály