Alsatian Shepalute Discussions

Isn't that shutting the door after the horse has bolted. To only health test when something goes wrong is ridiculous. The aim of good breeding is making sure health issues DONT'T arise not sort it out once it's happened. It should be paramount that ALL breeding stock is both hip and elbow tested and eye examed at the very list so as to prempt any health issues and tackle them from the very beginning BEFORE it becomes ingrained into the breed. I'm sorry the excuses given for not health testing do not wash with me.

The AKC will only consider 3 generations once the breed has been established and I can tell you now that they will not accept any new breed solely on just 3 generations breeding or 5 years. I'll state again, it is not possible to ESTABLISH a new breed in such a short time frame regardless as to what you may believe. The fact that there have been 2 outcrosses since the development began also defeats your claim that this is a breed, it isn't and can't be!

And this is the biggest hurdle ever, having just one breeder totally invalidates ANY information provided about these dogs as it is in that breeders best interest to promote thier breed and using any method possible to try to make them sound better than they are by calling them Champions or giving them certificates of merit. Now if she organised a show where all dogs were shown and judged by an independent person and the points gained when placed go towards a championship then that is a different matter. That's a bit like me awarding my own dogs Champion Certificates, it means nothing!
Becky

Commonplace may mean different things to different people.

Line breeding and Inbreeding are performed, yes. This is particularly seen after an outcross dog has been introduced to form a line. This happens in order to instill a greater gene pool from the purebred Alsatian Shepalute and lessor genes from the outcross keeping the ones she wants (that means very carefully picking the specific pup who will carry the line to the next generation).

You are talking genetics here, and I warn you that I am limited in my knowledge. I will give you what I understand from asking questions throughout the years.

Both parents had excellent hip scores, granted after the fact, but even if they were tested beforehand, the tests would not have indicated an issue in any way in this regard. I understand your conviction.

I'm not talking about establishing a breed. Yes, AKC wants at least 500 3rd generation or higher dogs throughout the US before considering for foundation stock. I'm talking about a breed of dog in the sense that a purebred dog breed's true, or produces similar offspring in temperament, looks, and health. AKC requires 3 generations in this regard. Our purebred dogs breed true, but we are right now establishing this breed of dog in the US.

I'll try to help you understand my view on why even with these two outcrosses the breed breed's true.

Let's just say that after 5 generations the Alsatian Shepalute was a breed and bred itself consistently in temperament, health, and looks. (I know you don't believe this can happen, but just bare with me for now.) When Lois felt the time was right to add the larger bone structure of the English Mastiff she bred a separate outcrossed line, keeping one strain of purebred dogs and one outcrossed line. When the outcrossed line bred consistently (and having what she wanted to add to her pure stock) she mixed the lines together.

I do not consider my dog, Cricket, a second generation on the mother's side and fourth generation on the father's side to be a purebred dog, since we like to have more than two generations before we claim that, as you can understand. But, her sister, Jessie, will breed soon and you and I will see if she 'breeds true'. I'm betting that she will. I'm thinking that all puppies will be mostly sable grey with some goldens if the father is Zorro, as she's planning. I'm thinking all pups will be heavy, solid, and thick boned. I'm betting that all pups will be mellow and quiet, as per temp. standards. I'm thinking that all pups eyes will be light brown to yellow in color. Lois would say all ears will be up, even though the dam has both ears down. I'm waiting for the pups to see on that one. I'm just as curious as you are about the ears.

I agree that health/temperament should come before appearance.

Agree with the points made about physical appearance.

I use imageshack for image hosting.

Just looked at your page, lovely dogs. Good luck with your s.a.r dog.

i agree the dogs are stunning to look at, my sam has massive fluffy ears like that

Thank you.

Hello Everyone-

I wanted to post the temperament testing that I mentioned I'd post when I received it.

I can't add the image here, so please go to the following URL to see the testing page. Thanks.

http://bullregard0.tripod.com/temperament.html

Thanks for that, its interesting.

I still don't get how a pup can be declared not a breed because of its temperament. Having a undesirable temperament doesn't change its breed, as it still shares the same genetic make up as its better tempered siblings.

I suppose it's easier to do it that way, then you don't have to work on sorting the 'breed' out as a whole - just call the pretty, amiable ones champions and discard the rest. To me, it's not really a breed at this stage. Temperament should be pretty much consistent - obviously there is always going to be variability, but I think is shows a lack of effort. I suppose if you just let dogs breed amongst themselves in a field with their mothers and siblings, you've not got much control regarding which dog to put to another.

this irritates me tbh. I have two dogs of the same breed. One is quiet and calm, one is shy. They are still the same breed, and they are also immature puppies at the moment. For someone to say to me that Dan is 'not an Estrela' because he is shy would be complete rubbish. He is a baby, not yet into puberty and will grow with confidence once his male hormones kick in. I know many Estrelas and they all have different personalities. And this is a real breed that has been around for hundreds of years. you can't just discard puppies because they have a quieter temperament. They are all individuals. How many people have read the standard for their breed and thought - well mine does this but isn't like that. Does that make them a poor specimen of their breed - or simply an individual? Or are you trying to create robots?

My point exactly.

Labs are apparantly suposed to love water, and be greedy. Well, only one of mine loves water, another will follow him in, the third, no way in hell. Also Storm isn't that bothered about food, unless its a ginger biscuit lol. Does that mean that my odd ones arn't labs then, because I just thought it was individual quirks.

I think Belayev's fox farm experiments demonstrated that by breeding ONLY for a singular trait (sociability towards humans) you will also start to change the physical aspect as well.

Most breeders surely breed for both 'personality' and 'looks'; while some earmark social pups at an early age they also wait to see how the adult turns out before breeding from it.

Only time will tell if the Shepalute becomes popular enough to become a 'proper' breed and breed true to type when its type has been fully developed. It would be interesting to meet a selection of these dogs.

Though I do find darwinesque concept of artificial selection combined with the hand of god an unusual combination for developing a breed.