Albino Dobermans

I find it entertaining that your thread, which was started in order to refrain from derailing another thread, was thoroughly derailed by the first page.

On the topic of opening up the stud books again, I actually don't think that's a bad idea. First, I would think that an emphasis on importation and breeding 'outside the box,' so to speak, would help, and opening the stud books would be a last resort, but I don't see it as a terrible thing as long as it's limited to similar breeds (in temperament or conformation) and only dogs with outstanding health.

You're taking this awfully personally? When a gene pool is so weakened and yes, I am using the term Weakened then you must open that gene pool to other options which are healthy which sometimes does include other compatible breeds or dogs of breed that exist outside of the normal acceptable registry pool. There are no completely healthy lines of dobermans anymore IMO, dogs of proper temperament are an exception, and the working ability of those lines are crap. MANY dogs have vWd and MANY have back and cardiac malformations that are visible at a young age. They are in my opinion ignored and hidden often times because so much is invested in the dog that they can't deal with poopsy not meeting health standards when he has just one more ribbon needed for his championship. That Ch. At the beginning of a name is such a draw.

As far as chic a WAE/WAC certificate event isn't that hard to come by in two years. A bigger flag to me is the failure rate during those tests of 70%-50% depending on who you believe. OUCH! Who knew a guy in a poncho was so terrifying?

I would be happy if dobermans were healthy, if they were capable of doing the work for which they were bred, and if breeders would stop pretending that they're something they're not.

As far as who Otto is. Otto Goeller. I'll let you google.

Kat09, Some dogs fail the WAE because sometimes the threatening stranger just isn't that threatening and the dog doesn't recognize that person as a real threat.

Bull, more dogs fail threatening stranger because they fold when the threatening stranger approaches (pressure being applied) which is a sign of weak temperament. The only way a dobe can fail that test portion is if they retreat or refuse to acknowledge the person at all.

YouTube - Morgan Passes the WAE Dog with a good to excellent pass. This dog does not appear to have been conditioned to any of the test parts so reacts genuinely surprised to parts yet recovers. Great response to the threatening stranger at the end although takes a little time to recover.

YouTube - Luxx Passes the WAE Dog with a moderate pass imo. you can see this dog has been conditioned to much of the test.

YouTube - Working Apptitute EvaluationDog with poor nerve once pressure is applied. These dogs will not ever pass this test portion without being conditioned to pass it.

YouTube - Mojo fails the WAE dog with a moderate fail. These are dogs that bark ferociously as they back up into your house.

Remember, temperament cannot be learned. It's what the dog is born with.

Dobermans have type 1 VwD. Meaning the least leathal kind. In fact there is argument that the testing isnt all that great. Out of all the affected dobes out there, less than 3% are clinicly affected. Many are docked/croped/altered with no problems. Carriers have more issues with VwD symptoms than most affecteds that I have known or known of.

Kat09
i picked the rotti because it is all that is left of the old german butcher's dog & a little good working stock can still be found.
the greys because they are in the current version & add alot of speed for running down a thug on a send and would functionally eliminate hip issues.
the apbt because no matter what it's bred to it boosts drive & intensity in general as well as bringing alot of vigor (which is why it is in some of the top KNPV mals & dutchies).
there is still a lot of good working stock in beauceron in EU so i'm not opposed to that.
while i'm not thilled w/ the mal/dutchie idea it would negate the need for apbt since it probably is already in there.
Jenn
i''m talking about mostly REadding blood that is already there and if that achieves the desired end stopping right there. but ultimately the end of reinvigorating the health & ability of the breed is more important than maintaining 100% breed purity. this is especially true since the closed stud book is a MAJOR factor in the current state of the breed.

Pops - I like your thinking on the butchers dog. I just think that mastiff influence would bleed through a little badly, but working line dogs do tend to not be so clunky as showline so maybe that is a good idea. I like your greyhound thought but I think type would be better served by maybe a weim instead.

That's a pretty weak argument. Fit for function is the name of the game and IMO a super short haired physical working dog with a clot issue of any kind is a problem. The real issue is that it's postulated that 70% of the breed population is effected. As a quick FYI however you can still get your OFA number if your dog is a carrier. For fun sometime you should search the OFFA database to see how many of these dogs are still bred or crossed to another carrier instead of a clear dog. Only 500 dobies have ever had published results for vWd.

This is what happened to my Ilsa - Hillside, were you there? I forget if you were there or not, and got to witness the ridiculousness of the situation. Yeah, a morbidly obese old guy feebly waving a stick around, wobbling towards Ilsa and saying "rawr!" in a nonthreatening way.... was my dog supposed to fly off the handle at THAT? Good lord, I hope not!

(on a side note, by the time there was a WAE held in my area again, Ilsa was dead. Can't take a dead dog through the WAE.)


I love how this thread started out about albino dobes and was instantly turned into a bash-fest of the breed. As usual.

Blues and fawns have been with the breed since the very beginning. I think it's quite a stretch to blame fawns for the health problems in the breed.

Dobermans have never been a very healthy breed. Heart problems have always been there - we've had bad hearts from the very beginning. DCM often pops up late in life, and we still do not have a reliable test for it.

I'd like to point out that European dobes have no fewer heart problems than American dobes, there was a recent study that wholly supports this.

Many of us are trying very hard - testing annually and trying our best to make safe breeding decisions. But when top stud dogs test fine for years and then suddenly drop dead... what more can we do?

Now, on temperament. If you don't like where my breed is headed, stay out of my breed. Have fun with your own dogs... mine are just fine, and their level of protectiveness is *ideal* for my situation. Not every dog has to be a "true PP dog" - to be honest, I live in a cute, quiet little town with almost zero crime. I don't need a "true PP dog" because my life isn't that dangerous! My dogs could probably go their entire lives without needing to be what some people on this forum think they should be.

My dogs put up one he11 of a show - and I figure anything my dogs can't finish, my Ruger P345 can.

Maybe on OFA, yes. But many people just run a VetGen test and call it a day. My bitch is vWD clear, but she's not on OFA. She is, however, listed in the Dobequest database as being vWD clear, which is what many dobe people use for publishing health testing anyway.

yes but fawns were a BY PRODUCT of breeding for blue back when the blacks & red were mostly strogn healthy dogs and blues were on shaky ground due to the mostly minor health problems associated w/ it. then when they became acceptable they were bred intentionally. they also got crossed w/ other colors to improve their conformation and in the process passed on their crappy genes to the healthy colors. while not the sole source for crap in the blacks & reds they certainly didn't help the situation for the breed as a whole.
i actually like the dobe very much and had a really nice BYB bitch when i was a teen that was healthy as you could ask for (in all fairness the breed as whole was a lot more healthy then). her only health issue was minor hypothyroid. she lived to 13 and was very active upto the day she died. on a couple of occasions she did engage and take down threatening people with no prior training. she was also an adoring nanny dog for my neices when they visited. eventually i'd like to find one just like her, but it's not a priority right now.

Weims wouldn't be a bad choice for adding health and vigor without losing type. My aunt had a straight up 50/50 weim dobe cross when I was younger. He was red, and had a nicely done dobe crop. Everybody he met thought he was pure dobe. One time we were walking him down the street, and this guy flipped out, demanding to know what kennel he was from. He wouldn't believe us when we told him Boo was a mix. The guy said he was a dobe breeder, and he'd never seen such a gorgeous dobe before, and that Boo couldn't be mixed. That he had a perfect shoulder, head, blah blah.

As a whole, dobes are so tightly bred it wouldn't be hard to bring any outcross back to type after a few generations. I think this dude used corgis in his bobtail boxer outcross, and you can't much different in phenotype than that. STEYNMERE BOBTAIL BOXERS

If you're judiciously re-adding foundation breeds to current stock, I don't see a huge loss in type or temperament happening, and it would be a pretty solid way of improving the health. Especially if the health has never been that great. It's hard to breed back to something that was never there.

I like the Beauceron as an outcross; however you would deal with longer hair, double dews and a sensitive breed (haven't owned too many dobes; so not sure what their temps are like anyway.)

It's what they were bred for, it's what they were traditionally born for, it's what they should be able to do. Whether they need to or not, it's up to your lifestyle. Why would doberman breeders not DEMAND that their breed still be able to do the function that they were historically bred for? Maybe because the needs of breeders have changed? Maybe living with a dog who can do the job is a little more inconvenient than the dog they want for the show ring? Or maybe it's the same BS coolaide that the show line GSD owners have been drinking?

As far as dobes being unhealthy why would breeders not want to fix that any way they could including opening the stud book to healthier dogs? Really what would be lost by the attempt? The temperament isn't what it was, the breed is a disaster of health concerns, and the look can easily be replicated with other breeds of similar structure.

On the subject of dobequest. "The Doberman Pinscher Club of America and it's Members disclaim any liability for the accuracy or meaning of any information provided on this web site. Users agree to use or rely on such information solely at their own risk. This disclaimer provides no warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy of any information, and users agree to hold the Doberman Pinscher Club of America, the site operator, or any successor or representative thereof, harmless from any claim, liability, or damage resulting from any use of the information on the web site. All photographs are protected by copyright law."

So.... it's self reporting and only for DPCA breeders. The reason I like OFFA is because there is a bit more honesty in a 3rd party doing the grading or publishing the results and not everyone is a member of their parent club including me. It's not that I don't have an interest in joining, I just don't have an interest in confirmation showing.

Romy, I've never seen the bobtail boxer thing. I love it. Did they do any followup to see if DM followed into boxers from Corgis?

Sizzle, I wasn't there, but I think we spoke right after the fact.

Ilsa failed the contrived set up that was the WAE, would she have reacted to a REAL threat? ABSOLUTELY. I SAW her do so on at least a couple occasions. Whether or not Saga would pass remains to be seen. I'm not sure whether I will take her through it or not, on the other hand, she is my much loved pound puppy no matter what.

Bull? Yeah, if I had said ALL dogs fail because of that reason, then you could call bull on that statement, but I said SOME. A dog will pass even if they fear bark because they are still alerting, but if they don't vocally alert on a fake set up, then they fail. Dobes are in tune with their people, and if their person KNOWS that the threat, is in fact, not a threat, there are a great many dogs that WON'T respond. Surely you've heard the phrase "it all travels down the lead"?

It's done occasionally, but not often. Really, do you think that the Dutchie and Malinois NEED an influx of drive and intensity from the APBT? That just doesn't make any sense at all. The gene pool is full of dogs that make even the more intense APBTs look like garden slugs. The Dutchie & Malinois also have less health problems within their gene pool, too. And really, the LAST thing in the world that I would want in my Malinois is the tendency for APBTs to be submissive marshmallows with humans. Yes, the KNPV dogs are mixed to some degree, but it's not nearly as prevalent as people make it out to be. The successful breeders might go back and forth between Dutchie and Belgian breedings to some degree, but not much beyond that. How many APBTs do you see competing at high levels of KNPV, NVBK, and FR? There is a reason for that. Why on earth would somebody want to add something that doesn't do as well? Somebody who loves failure?



I've never quite understood the bashfest of dilute dogs in various breeds. They are like agents of Satan sowing the seeds of unstable health and temperament into unsuspecting gene pools. But, then you have the Weimaraner, a breed consists ONLY of dilutes that produces fabulous gun dogs and healthy show and sport dogs. If you would listen to people talk, the Weimaraner breed should have spontaneously combusted by now.



I know a lady that had a nice working bred Doberman that seemed very healthy, driven, and all that good stuff. Shortly after achieving his SchHIII, the dog suddenly dropped dead WHILE wearing the holter monitor. This would be why I will never own a Doberman. Too freaking scary!



The APBT that I had years ago was VERY soft with humans. It took very little to hurt his feelings and leave him a quivering bowl of jelly. I took him to FR training every once in a while just because I had loaded up all of the dogs, and somebody acting aggressively while I wasn't afraid really scared him.

But years before I added my other dogs, I was in the kitchen of my apartment when suddenly a drugged out man came bursting through my door. I have no idea what he was saying, I was too terrified to register much. He came at me still yelling when I heard a roar come from down the hallway. The guy's eyes got big, and he leaped back to the door and out, slamming it behind him just as 50 lbs of angry brindle muscle hit the door. When the police arrived, he was back to his normal sweet and sensitive self. Of all of the dogs that I've ever had, he had the least likely temperament to stand up for me, but when push came to shove, he did.

No, not true - though you may have gleaned that from simply reading the description of the test.