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Strong bone is very very important to both of them..With her very limited English Anna told me "if you want to construct a strong building,you must have a strong foundation..that's why,bone is so important!!"
Iceman how awesome that you got to visit with these people. What a treasure and opportunity to learn from masters.
On the bone thing I have to agree - A Doberman should not appear grey hound like or rottie like but balanced squarely inbetween these two extremes. I do not like to see the light boned and I don't like to see some of the trends moving toward the larger dogs.
Here I certainly feel as Ataro does that our females have gotten to be extremely refined. Lighter body and lighter bone.
The AKC stanard has stood since 1982 being the last revision and right now we are fighting hard within to lock the standard so it can't be changed to allow for the flopped ear or tail. The appearance of the doberman is one of great nobility and presense. They loose that when you leave the ear flopped and tail.
You know I will fight to the end on this one. But bone is more subjective - What appears heavy to one might appear normal to another but the height requirements will pretty much determine the weight within certain peramaters. A 28 inch dog is only going to have so much bone and so much muscle to be solid more weight is just fat.
My girls are within standard height wise but they come in at 75 to 80 lbs. I attribute that to BONE. Rayna who is certianly not fat weighed in at 80 lbs at our cardio clinic. BONE. When you exceed the height standard by too much you then become more Great Dane size loosing quickness and agility and the weight will follow this upward trend.
As I have watched this thread it becomes even more clear to me why we must lock our standards and not allow anyone to mess with them. AKC has tried to get us to change our standard on several occassions to include the discription of the flopped ear and so far we have held firm. We know the minute we open the standard for review for anything AKC is poised to force us to include that discription and most likely remove the penalty for the diviation.
Now as I read the above I have to shake my head and maybe what Ataro is saying makes more sense and clearly explains why the standard is so important to maintaining a breed. We have enough variation going on in breeding as it is and I don't see all the rules and reg in a large part of Europe haveing improved things one bit. A standard should not be changed at every whem and fad that blows by.
I will say this everytime Iceman post pictures of the IDC shows he goes to it is so refreshing to see beautiful examples of the breed correctly corpped and dock with great bone and substance while not over done except for a few as is true everywhere.
When I go to our Doberman Natls or any of the speciality shows I see the same variances - again reemphasizes why a standard must stand untouched and unchanged once a breed becomes stable The breed would never have become as popular had not some of this refinement taken place as Herr Dobermann's Dobermann was not a pretty dog for sure and very very sharp. He was a street fighter and a rag a tag muffin.
But there obviously comes a point where you have reached an ideal and that ideal must stand as the guiding force behind the breed to reel both judges and breeders back into line. Breeders must read the standard over and over and compare it to their own dogs and define what their objective is for each and every breeding. And then even with the best laid plans things can go awry but if you have adhered as close as possible to the standard they should not go compeletely south.
I remember years ago when I attended my first DPCA Natls how shocked I was to see the dogs and bitches in the ring - I nearly gagged. I had obviously been way to hard in judging my own dogs. I saw wide elbows in front, big chest - small rears - snipy heads, oversized and then Ray Carlisle walked into the ring and dismissed a number of entrants right out of the box that were oversized. You should have heard the gasp. Some of those dogs were handled by top handlers and they were excused from the ring. He asked the to go around lined them up and started eliminating those from the ring who were oversized.
It takes a lot of courage for a judge to make such a clear statement on the importance of the standard. Judges loose assignments when they do stuff like this so look at your clubs that host shows - they have the power to support or crush a judge who stands up for the standard.
How do we correct all this without destroying a breed??? That is the real question. It is the system that needs tweaking not breed standards. But even with its challenges it is better than no system.
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