GSDs: the enduring tragedy

I was sent this video today. It is of a Finnish dog and it dates from 2012.

But on this day, this 3.5yr old bitch won best female - VA1. Solholmens Jafri was the Finnish Siegerin (the top honour) in Finland in 2012.

I often advise PDE supporters that it is counter-productive to call show-dogs cripples. But I can't find any other word to describe what we see here. According to his listing, her hips have been graded B/C (only borderline/mild HD) but she looks so much worse.

If you saw any other breed walk like this, you'd take them to a vet, not run them in a courage test.  That's leaving aside how very poorly this dog performs and yet has still been awarded Schutzhund titles. As my correspondent said in her email:  "When looking at the courage tests here in Finland, many dogs have problems with their structure: it clearly prevents them from galloping and even jumping/charging in some cases. Even if the head wants to go fast and bite the sleeve, they cannot do it."

I am sad to see that this dog has been bred twice - once in 2011 and once in 2014. Her record on the Finnish KC database, shows that of her offspring to have been tested, all have hip grades of C/C - not great.

Hopefully this dog is not truly representative of the show dogs in Finland. Hopefully things have improved since 2012. Hopefully there are some better dogs in Finland still flying the flag for what a good GSD should be.

Because this? This has to stop.