Dutch Shepherd Forum

This is Ceska (chez-ka) and she is almost 14 weeks old. She arrived from the Czech Republic last week to a very cold and snow covered west Michigan, and then she had to learn to go potty in a world of white.
She loves her new sisters, Raven (LH) and Ellie (BT) and playing tag with them.

Hello all,

Sorry for the cut off photo of Ceska, for some reason no matter how small (resized) I make the pix in photo bucket, it is still not small enough to fit within the viewing size of this format, and the forum won't let me try to remove it and edit it one more time.
Oh well!

OMG, is she ever cute! Love that face!

ADORABLE!

she is soooooooooo adorable!

ADORABLE!!! Love your furry fam - they are gorgeous!!

She's beautiful! Keep the pics coming

KRoberts626 wrote:She's beautiful! Keep the pics coming

Greetings everyone,

I've finally gotten a break from spring lambing, and other house and farm duties, and had a chance to get out and take some new pixs of Ceska. She is now 6.5 mos old and she is a very good natured puppy, very sweet and loving, and is fitting in well. She has taken it upon herself to be the 'shepherd' and keep the sheep away from the fence along our back yard. For the most part the sheep ignore her now because they realize she's on the wrong side of the fence from them.

Just absolutely beautiful!

Sugars Mom wrote:Just absolutely beautiful!

Thank you Sue,
I am quite pleased with how she is turning out. Hopefully I can get her out to some shows later this summer and find out what others think of her. So far she's got great structure and movement, and correct coat and bite.

What a fine looking dog she has become.

She is beautiful!

Good luck at the shows! She sure is a beaut!

What a beautiful young dog! This is the first longhair I've seen, really.

In the current pics, she reminds me some of a Terv. Is that breed somewhere in the DS background, do you know?

gorgeous!

leih merigian wrote:What a beautiful young dog! This is the first longhair I've seen, really.

In the current pics, she reminds me some of a Terv. Is that breed somewhere in the DS background, do you know?

Good morning Leih,

I used to have Tervs & Groenendaels a long time ago (they were hardly known 30 yrs ago) , and when looking for a new companion dog, I decided I wanted something a bit different again, but still in the Herding family, thus the LH-HH"s.

In a very detailed article on the History of the Longhaired HH, & Short & Rough (Hollandse Herders) it is pointed out that Belgium & Holland were at one time a single country that had a common 'working-farm shepherd'. So yes, the Belgians & Dutch do stem from a common background. Many years ago they both had a wide variety of coat colors and types, which have gradually been narrowed down to the ones that are listed in their respective breed standards today. But occasionally in both the Belgians & Dutchies you will still see a throwback to those old colors.
The Longhaired's are fewer in numbers than the Shorthairs, and at one point they were in critical danger of extinction. To introduce new genetics for the breed, they underwent an infusion of blood from 2 males, 1 a Tervuren, and the other a Shorthair HH, all done under the supervision of the FCI & breed club. Those progeny then had to undergo being bred back to purebred Longhairs (LH) for 3 or 4 generations before they were then allowed entry into the Registry, and then they were still listed with letters in their registration numbers.
There is a blog that is currently being constructed that covers more on the history, standard, colors, etc.. of the Dutch Shepherd : www.dscna.blogspot.com, as well as the NHC's website in Holland for the breed.

Wow, Brenda, great info! Thanks!

Beechtree wrote:[
In a very detailed article on the History of the Longhaired HH, & Short & Rough (Hollandse Herders) it is pointed out that Belgium & Holland were at one time a single country that had a common 'working-farm shepherd'. So yes, the Belgians & Dutch do stem from a common background. Many years ago they both had a wide variety of coat colors and types, which have gradually been narrowed down to the ones that are listed in their respective breed standards today. But occasionally in both the Belgians & Dutchies you will still see a throwback to those old colors.

What "throw back" colors can Belgians throw?

I love hearing about the history of the 2 breeds.

Christie M wrote:

Beechtree wrote:[
In a very detailed article on the History of the Longhaired HH, & Short & Rough (Hollandse Herders) it is pointed out that Belgium & Holland were at one time a single country that had a common 'working-farm shepherd'. So yes, the Belgians & Dutch do stem from a common background. Many years ago they both had a wide variety of coat colors and types, which have gradually been narrowed down to the ones that are listed in their respective breed standards today. But occasionally in both the Belgians & Dutchies you will still see a throwback to those old colors.

What "throw back" colors can Belgians throw?

I love hearing about the history of the 2 breeds.

Good morning Christie,

I had a great reply to your question earlier this AM, but apparently the 'forum' doesn't like it if you take too long to type a reply, and it timed me out, and erased what I had composed when I hit 'send'. grrr! I'll try to re-create it again, but I think I missed some of the points this time around.

Well, back about 30 years ago in the Tervuren's you would occasionally see a black puppy crop up in a litter. Of course this was all hush-hush, and the puppies were not registerable as a Terv. as someone in this country got the 'brilliant' idea of making the different colors separate breeds. Which I never understood the reasoning behind because in the past they were all one breed and bred together. Much like a Labrador can throw black, yellow, or chocolate, and still be the same breed.
Then when it became the rage to import new genetics and more colors or shade variations came in with those imports, including the silvers, which was or is an excluded color in the USA. I am inserting a link to a Belgian color genetics site. It is very interesting reading, but I haven't worked my way through all of it yet. http://www.ozbsd.com/coat-inheritance/c ... tance.html

In the 'History of the Dutch Shepherd' it mentions that in the beginning when the society was formed, there were 6 acceptable coat types and about 3 or 4 colors. This eventually was narrowed down to the 3 acceptable coats, and 3 colors that you see today: the gold brindle, silver brindle, and the salt & pepper for the roughs.
Some of the other coat types were in the 'longhairs' and included close lying (which is the type you see now) and a coat that 'stands away' from the body (I think this was like an abundant coat like some tervs?) For colors there was also a solid chestnut brown, as well as a chestnut brindle, and a yellow, as well as more abundant white markings were seen than are now allowed.

On the dscna blog I have posted a photo of one of the yellows under the 'colors' heading. There are also ones that I would call 'fawn' which exhibit more masking , almost like a Tervuren or Malinois without the black overlay. Also, I've heard HH breeders mention that you want to make sure that you don't get too much black , because this leans towards an almost all black looking dog.

If you are interested, I will see if I can get the translated 'History' posted up on a website somewhere to provide a link, or I might have it saved as a doc. in my computer.

Beechtree wrote:Well, back about 30 years ago in the Tervuren's you would occasionally see a black puppy crop up in a litter. Of course this was all hush-hush, and the puppies were not registerable as a Terv. as someone in this country got the 'brilliant' idea of making the different colors separate breeds.

Sad mistake, to assume that many breeders even know the slightest iota about genetics, and even sadder that nobody can stand up against a registry that thinks they need to deny a pup its papers, based on their pathetic description of what they would like to see, vs what is genetically perfectly possible. Yes, two tervs could produce a black (groenendael) as well as two malinois could produce a black pup. It is rare recessive black, but perfectly possible, if both parents carried the recessive gene.

In the 'History of the Dutch Shepherd' it mentions that in the beginning when the society was formed, there were 6 acceptable coat types and about 3 or 4 colors. This eventually was narrowed down to the 3 acceptable coats, and 3 colors that you see today: the gold brindle, silver brindle, and the salt & pepper for the roughs.
Some of the other coat types were in the 'longhairs' and included close lying (which is the type you see now) and a coat that 'stands away' from the body (I think this was like an abundant coat like some tervs?) For colors there was also a solid chestnut brown, as well as a chestnut brindle, and a yellow, as well as more abundant white markings were seen than are now allowed. I have posted a photo of one of the yellows under the 'colors' heading. There are also ones that I would call 'fawn' which exhibit more masking , almost like a Tervuren or Malinois without the black overlay.

Gold and silver brindle are labels, used by a breed club (and that includes the DS's) to describe the ligher or darker golden colors in a brindle coat. Genetically, despite the fact that there are claims of its existence, there are no true silver brindle dogs. They are all, genetically, simply gold (phaeomelanin) But in shades of a light golden coloring, much like white gold, via warmer shades of gold, all the way to copper brown looking.
Solid chestnut brown, in the longhair, was more than likely nothing less than a dark mahogony that you can also find in the Tervs. Gentitcally, NOT brown, just dark ''Ay'' yellow. ''Chestnut brindle" was a deep golden brown and black, and it is not a color, but a shade. Brindle only comes in black and blue, with no reports of brown (bb) in the breed. Yellow still exists. It is the dreaded fawn "Ay ky" A possible lack of mask does not change the fact that a dog is still simply fawn, but with little "Em" masking.