I've already made up my mind but what do y'all think?

[Sugars Mom]

Looking at the photos you posted of Ginger, I would agree that the first few did not resemble a DS at all…except for the brindle. The last one, hey, could be. I know its hard to get a true sense from a photo, but there are the traits that go along with the physical part too. You really haven't said too much about how she is, so maybe you see more things in common with the DS then we have from a limited amount of info about her. Again, I agree about the cats, this really doesn't fit with how this breed typically acts.

I can understand first hand wanting to know what breed my dog is…when I adopted Sugar I had no idea what she was, just thought she was a mix. I was surprised by how much I "needed" to know what she was, as looking at the different breeds that she could be mixed with, nothing really fit. Maybe some physical descriptions could kinda fit for some breeds, but then the traits did not…it really was a real mystery. And knowing how different breeds needs are and how different strategies are more effective when working with different breeds, and what to expect from different breeds, it did seem important to me to know what breed she was.

Then someone who I would meet up with so our dogs could play together found a pic of a DS online and told me about it. We had never heard of the DS before. When I read about the breed, it all clicked and I could relate to the traits and personality and look of the DS. Her dad must have been a DS!! She clearly did not look like her mother, who was a long haired labradoodle/wire haired thing and some of the pups in her litter looked like mom. However, Sugar was the size of her mom, not a typical DS size. And the other diff was her ears never stood up. So here I am, on this forum and its been great for me to learn and hear about the DS.

If you feel that Ginger's characteristics fit with the DS and learning more about them is helpful, then great! Maybe you have a DS mix, maybe you don't. Some things will apply to many dog breeds that you will find helpful. And I sure can sympathize with you wanting to know her breed!

[icvanstra]

One unique thing about Ginger is how she gets off of a bed or couch, she lets her back legs drag totally horizontally until almost off the bed and then they flop to the floor right as she is almost off, is this a DS thing or just Ginger I wonder.

Not a Dutch Shepherd 'thing.' I would expect a Dutch Shepherd to leap, fly, spring and knock you over - unless well trained to not do that.

...

In the bulk of the photo's Ginger looks HUGE. Both structurally and weight. The average Dutch Shepherd to the the layperson looks malnourished - that is a putting it in simple terms. They are a lean dog! Can't begin to tell you how many times people have told me that Cino and all the rescues looked too thin.

[icvanstra]

One thing I would ask, why is it so important to you for ginger NOT to be a DS?

Nobody wants Ginger to not be a DS. You came on here asking for an opinion, and you got one. I have 2 Dutch Shepherds now and was around malinois for a long time before them. I've worked to help identify numerous dogs going into Dutch Shepherd rescue and she's missing a lot of the key features Dutch Shepherds have. Even if she resembles a dog early on in the history of the breed, that look isn't what is being produced right now. There are still very few DS in the country, especially compared to other breeds, so adding in the fact that she doesn't meet a loose version of the breed standard, there's a strong chance she's not a DS.

Also, for personality identification, the DS is not an animal that does great with every animal. DS have high prey drives and it's often difficult to find one that does well with cats and small animals without management and training. There are members here that have cats and Dutch Shepherds and make it work, but I wouldn't say that that is a breed standard trait.

Well said.

---

It's not that we don't want Ginger to be a Dutch Shepherd. So far the descriptions of her and the photo's don't meet the traditional breed standard.

It is true that standards change with time. So far everyone on here has said that the information given does not meet CURRENT breed standards.

[gingerman]

Well, I was waiting to respond until I got better pics as the forum rules dictate. I have lived with ginger for 6 months and am basing my judgement about what breed she is, you are basing your judgment on crappy pics and that is my fault. I really have no problem with ginger being a mix, like I said I really like the idea of having a one of a kind dog just like my last one, it's just that after looking through hundreds of DS pics and reading about history and characteristics, and meeting dutch shepherd owners and comparing notes, I simply see nothing about her that isn't dutchie, so im really curious about the "several key factors" she is missing. I have come across several examples of dogs people have deemed dutch shepherds (although I'm sure you would disagree) that seem to have a very gentle streak in them just like ginger. If DS are supposed to be vicious cat eaters by nature, then Ginger is not and I'm glad, Id much rather have ginger the way she is, sweet, sensitive and amazingly smart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_bqgX28uHo

[gingerman]

By the way thank you sugars mom for your post, my last post was really not in response to yours. I have taken several more pics but need to download them. Perhaps the cat thing has to do with the fact ginger came into our lives when I had adult cats but she was a puppy, so they got their bluff in early. Only the last pics really look like ginger, so Ill just wait to post anything else along with more pics to avoid confusion. My story is a bit like yours in that I simply couldnt figure out what type of mix ginger was until I discovered the DS.

[Dutchringgirl]

Give that Koi fish legs so It could run and watch that DS chase it ! Friends no more. LOL. DS's have prey drive, if it runs, they will chase it, If the animal wont run, the DS will be fine. Sadie noses the gerbils all of the time and the gerbils nose Sadie, its very cute. Put that same gerbil on the ground so it can run.............

[Raven]

I was typing while Lisa had posted. While I've been quietly supportive of each "side," here's my two-cents:

Gingerman:

Injecting inflammatory remarks in response to those whose opinions you sought out offers nothing to discussion. You ask for opinions, then come back swinging because you don't like what you've been told. You titled your inquiry "I've already made up my mind...." I can't imagine why you pursued this when you already had made up your mind and heard the answers you apparently wanted to hear from other real or otherwise DS owners. Still, you pursue...since you're not hearing what you want to hear. Knowledgeable, respected (and respectful) individuals have tried to help you understand why they have their opinions (which you asked for).

Sometimes we learn by listening, too.

In regard to your remark "if DS are supposed to be vicious cat eaters" and that you're glad Ginger isn't--good--I'm glad, too. But since you've acquired a wealth of information in such short order that seems to surpass the collected experience totaling many years of DS people on this board, I'm sure you simply forgot that DS typically have high prey drives, not restricted to cats, as will most any animal with a high prey drive. The people who mentioned cats used cats as an example since cats are a common problem for many DS owners because they also own cats.

Once again, the important thing is that you gave her a home. You have spent solid, quality time with her and seem to know her...what else is there? If you want her to be a DS, then voila, you got one.

I don't think she'd care about this whole thing. The only thing she knows she was homeless, now she's not. She's got a home and that's all that really matters to her, and if you're not having problems with her...all the better.

Most folks who get DSs, especially those found homeless or in shelters, come with varying degrees of issues. Ginger doesn't have any that you mentioned. Might be another clue.

Best of luck with you and your baby. She's very sweet and lucky to have you.

[gingerman]

I think I've thoughtfully read posts and given at least reasonably articulate responses. I've taken responsibility for posting inadequate pics and apologize for breaking the rules. I simply asked what the "several key features" ginger is missing out of curiosity, because I'm at a loss as to what she was referring to, and didnt understand how ginger's gentleness had anything to do with these key features she was talking about. Of course shepherds in general are going to have high prey drives and personalities will vary (my last dog was german shepherd and rott and was also sweet to kitties), but I didnt realize that dutch shepherds were so exceptionally agressive, this is the opposite of what I had read in a dozen or so websites I've read about the breed. It's too bad there are so many websites about dutch shepherds that are so wrong, but I'm glad ginger isn't one. The reason why I posted the vid about the goldfish is because of that dog's appearance, to me it seems to vary from the "norm" of the dutchie much more than ginger, yet the owners obviously think they have one.

[Dutchringgirl]

The dog playing with the fish was a DS.

[Raven]

Tons of misinformation about EVERYTHING on the net. A couple of glaring ones that stick out in my mind about DSs: they don't have dew claws and they are NOT used for law enforcement because they proved not to be "fierce enough" to do the job.

[LyonsFamily]

I didn't reply about the key features because I thought this thread was headed nowhere and that Eric and the others gave pretty good responses. Since you don't seem satisfied with those, I'll outline it in pictures.

Since you're mainly focusing on light colored DS for your comparison, I posted a body comparison with a friends dog since mine are both dark brindle. His name is Zander. In this pic, he's around 10-11 months old, so it's a very similar age comparison for your dog. He was bred to work and isn't conformationally perfect, but does follow the general breed standard of a DS. You will notice a few things.

DS-compare.jpg (44.27 KiB) Viewed 10250 times

Body: One being body shape. He has a thin frame with an exaggerated tuck up and very long legs. Since he's young, he's legs are even longer here. If you note the fur length, even at this young of age, there is an obvious double coat that has firm hair. This is really noticeable around the neck and rear.

heads-compare.gif (95.33 KiB) Viewed 10250 times

Head: Elongated wedge shape without noticeable cheek bones. Ginger's muzzle is shorter and more round and you can see cheek bones. In a DS, the ears are set high and erect. I'd also note the ear shape differences. Eyes should be almond shaped and not round.

Feet: Black nails with black pads. This is in the FCI standard and quite frankly I've never seen a DS without all black nails. Even with the allowable white patches on the toes, the nails have been black. Ginger has white nails in the pictures.

Size: The fact that she is past 80lbs before turning a year old is also a big indicator of at least something else being mixed in. Females are smaller than males and most DS are around 50-70bs. Cher Car's Cash and Van Leeuwen's Bor are both examples that are bigger than that, but they are males and are the exception and also meet the other parts of the breed standard. We've never seen your friend's dog, so I can't comment on that, but papers can be misleading, especially in a breed that still has only a few lines registered in the US. Most of the working stock will not have papers and those are the ones typically out of standard in size.

While it's true that all dogs have faults and the standard is open to interpretation, a combination of missing features led to the conclusion of not DS. These aren't subtle differences.

[Raven]

Funny--I've been thinking of Bor being a good example of structural exception. (I get choked up whenever I see pics of him.)

[Dutchringgirl]

Just go over to the Conformation thread, there are tons of great examples of DS's.

At this point, I think this is a dead issue. we all have our own opinions and I feel we are at a stand off. That is okay to call Ginger what ever breed you desire.

[Travis]

Since I'd been following the thread for a bit I thought I'd chime in with a few thoughts. Please note, I'm a far cry from a DS conformation expert so these are more just random observations from someone who's had or been around a few DS for a few years.

On the initial topic. From the first couple of pics Ginger looked like a brindle mix of some type but not a DS to me personally if I had to place a wager on the matter. But without a vested interest and seeing things get emotional "sure... why not." In some of the other pics, looked more Dutch than in others. Hence my upcoming long and slightly tangential post.

Note: Almost everything below is mainly me just being Devil's Advocate on random points of the thread.

Looking through a lot of the pics on my phone of our three Dutchies here, in some ours look very Dutchie but from other angles each of the ones here at our house look like anything from lab/pit/GSD or Malinois mixes. Even in person they run the gamut in type. From Luna looking like anything from a tiny brindle Malinois to a Whippet DS mix, Maxine's Labrador style barrel ribcage (even when she is lean and ribby) with a classic DS head stuck on it. Maya from some angles has a vaguely Pitbull-ish snout and all white claws and at some angles looks like a GSD body type with a bit more hip angularity than the more square Mal build of the other two.

To some degree I attribute this range to the "breed dogs that can work" breed history as the allowing for a broader range in looks as an unintentional by product. Understandably, my dogs might not be "to standard" but at the same time I'm sure there are completely non-DS mixes out there that probably conform more closely to the physical FCI standard than some KNPV Dutch Shepherds.

Which is a bit of my point in that it's very hard to tell if a GSD mixed with any of the possible sources of brindling is a Dutchie (for me at least). For instance, what would a brindle pit/whippet/dane/boxer/etc. on one end, mixed into a shepherd of any type or even other upright eared double coated breeds like chow mixes, keeshonds, etc potentially look like? Any number of ways to get a brindle, squarish framed, upright eared, medium coated dog.

Heck, our Maxine is a Dutch Shepherd as per Trudy at NADSR and I'd trust her opinion infinitely beyond my own on the subject. Having said that, an objective eye would also note her barrel "Lab" body type and amazing lack of prey drive. She'll let rabbits and cats race across a hiking path right in front of her without a care in the world. (Note: I wouldn't consider this normal for a DS nor would I ever breed to the lack of prey drive. Merely noting that one of our Dutch Shepherds definitely is of that personality type).

I'm not dissenting that black claws aren't the FCI standard either but just to be a pain for the discussion I'll point out that we also have a very dark brindle DS here with zero white on her paws yet every one of her claws are white. And she's a Van Leeuwen dog.

Now, my point on all of the above isn't to say that I think the original posted dog is in fact a DS. Rather veering off on some interesting random points that I think the thread raises. I'm a bit nervous to jump into the fray too far on the original question as it seems most are far more emotionally invested on the particular looks of their dogs than I tend to be and I don't want to hurt any feelings.

[icvanstra]

Stepping in on this one again.

Time for everyone to agree to disagree.

[gingerman]

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HPIM1051.JPG (203.29 KiB) Viewed 10200 times

Ok, lets start over. I have some pics that I actually took that show what Ginger really looks like. There have been good responses that I have not had the time to respond to, so here we go....

I had already watched the video of Sakima and had observed several similarities with Ginger before I made the first post, and it was pondering Sakima, Ginger and several other dogs I've run across and information about dutchies, including other posts in this thread, led me to conclude that we are essential talking about two different sub-breeds that have formed from the Dutch shepherd. If breed standards have changed, what happens to the offspring of the older dutchies that don't conform to the new standards? Do they become "the breed formerly known as Dutch shepherds"? Also, I've seen many pics of dutch shepherd police and military dogs and have heard of different police departments going to dutchies from GSDs, and with the empasis this thread and website seem to have put on DS competitive and agility characteristics, it seemed contradictory to me. Ginger might come in near the back of the pack as far as agility standards for the DS, but she would make an ideal police dog, I would venture better than many DS who are agility champions. ` Then I found this website...

http://www.vankamphuis.com/dutchiehistory.pdf

So that just clarified everything too me. In the case of Ginger, there have significant differences noted between her and the breed standard, I completely agree with that, but then when I read the standards for the non-registered "working" dutchie, all the deviations don't apply. Unless the above website and others I've read are incorrect, exactly every way that Ginger deviates from DS norms are the same ways the un-registered working variety vary from the largely papered, more pedigree dog with the outstanding competitive capabilities and adherence to much stricter visual and physical standards. BUT THEY ARE BOTH STILL CALLED DUTCH SHEPHERDS.

I think a good argument could be made that they have become different enough dogs to deserve some kind of name distinction, but that has not been done yet. So is this website for the working variety too or just pedigrees? I want to share information with other owners with dogs like mine, and there seem to be a number of dogs out there like Ginger, maybe a different category on here is appropriate.

For those that got the impression that I just WANTED Ginger to be a dutch shepherd, how could i want her to be a dog I had never heard of? I had already exhausted any mix i could possibly think of when I ran across a pic of a DS and slapped my palm to my forehead exclaiming SO THATS WHAT SHE IS! There seem to be at least some others that have gone through a similar process and came to similar conclusions.

If theoretically Ginger did become a police dog and then entered a police dog competition, she would be entered as a DS, and wouldn't need any papers to do so: am I wrong?? If I am all wet on my hypothesis I do really wan't to know, but I would appreciate information that tells me why. I appreciate the informative posts I've received, but the ones that essentially say "Your wrong, I'm an expert and you just take my word for it" don't do me any good.

[gingerman]

Oh no, white nails, I guess poor "Sage" doesn't get to join the club either...

[icvanstra]

Oh no, white nails, I guess poor "Sage" doesn't get to join the club either...

From the picture you posted of sage that massive amount of White alone....

[Dutchringgirl]

your need for Ginger to be a DS is far greater than our desire to help you. It seems there is nothing that we can say to you to help other than, yes she is a DS, but I will not say that, as she is not. You can post as many pictures as you wish, articles from where ever you find them about DS's and prove to yourself that she is one. I do not understand your need need to prove to us what breed she is, but that is okay, its not me you need to convince, its yourself. I wish you and Ginger a long and loving fun life together.

[johninny]

3 -part response.
1. thanks for posting that link - DS history. i liked reading it - it was the clearest, most concise i have seen for the layman that i am.
2. others have commented aplenty on ''conformation'' - and much better than i ever could. still photos can be strange [ affecting opinions both pro and con ] and your photos still are not the clearest to judge by, but they do SEEM sufficient, particularly given Ginger's size. what has been completely left out of the conversation [ by you ] [ and let's leave it out since people have given their answers ] is myriad specifics of Ginger's personality, behavior, movement, etc, etc. If it looks like a duck AND QUACKS like a duck....
again, i am not wanting to start this discussion [ far too subtle and specific and too many attributes to observe and discuss here but maybe can be gleaned and inferred by you from many posts on the forum];
however, this is an avenue you can pursue/investigate. for you to determine - if you really are making a good-faith effort beyond that implied in your thread title - how much, if any, Ginger is a DS [ seems highly unlikely to be purely DS or DS/Mal ], you need to get to know how one moves, thinks, acts....
meet a few no-controversy, purebred DS and see how SPECIFICALLY Ginger behaves like they do. to me that is the key to whether her looks come from having some DS in her or whether, for example, her brindle is from another one of more than 100 breeds that have brindle.
3. since you again referenced my dog Sakima, i have attached head and body profiles of him to help you evaluate Ginger. also, for reference, he weighs 66 pounds. and as i said in an earlier post to you, i would not be surprised if he were 1/4 some other type of shepherd [ not DS or Mal ], i.e., that one of his grandparents was 100% not Dutch or Belgian while still being some sort of shepherd. nothing in his looks or behavior alone leads me to say that, but both his looks and behavioral traits have very slight bits that when i add them up make me think he could have something else going on relatively recently in his ancestry.

it should not matter too much to you, other than helping you understand what Ginger is all about.

p.s. [edit]: Sakima came from a lousy, no-name ''DS'' breeder who was probably hoping to sell his DSs for police and protection work. Saki would have no chance at being good at those jobs [ tho PERFECTLY protective from my point of view just as i would want from any DS ] [ as for starters, he would not do well with the training AND he lacks sufficient environmental soundness ]. on the other hand, he would probably embrace formal agility sports; he is as agile and fast as most any DS [ and in the DS ''manner'' ] and is quick and intuitive about his learning. he also has nerves of steel when it comes to physical challenges, so there is no compunction about going over a 20-foot cliff at high speed and he has managed to overcome any number of what seemed to me like insurmountable challenges. he would love it if i did agility with him, but i think his favorite sport and and best shot at excelling would probably be dock-diving.