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mastercaster wrote:I'm on a griff web site and there was a recent thread where people were posting how big their dogs were in terms of height and weight. I was gob smacked to hear how many of these dogs were in the 80-90 pound range and a good four inches or more taller than standard. When Eduard Korthals developed this bird dog back in the late 1800s he did it wanting a medium size hunting dog as the result. Is this still the goal?
Griff (WPG) standard is 20-22" for female, 22-24" for males. Medium size dogs are supposed to be in the range of 40-60 pounds. Large breed dogs are between 60-90 pounds. Why are there so many monster griffs out there? Sure, some are over weight but a whole lot of them are far too tall. Everyone knows there's always going to a runt or an overly large pup in any litter but from what I;'m hearing it's a lot more than just the odd one.
I have to wonder if there are breeders out there who aren't considering the conformation standard, just throwing it aside, and breeding for what they consider more important traits like hunting ability, temperament, health certified, etc.? These are obviously super important but surely those attributes can be found in a standard size griff.
One thing I have observed is that griffs bred in Europe and in Canada conform much more to size whereas litters that are bred in the States are often where the larger griffs come from.
What do you think? Is size no longer important with this breed of dog when it comes to breeding it? Should these larger, non standard dogs be used for breeding purposes,,,,is bigger better? Does this breed need to be re-classified as a large breed dog?
jarbo03 wrote:
Mastercaster, for the most part, every griff site I've been on is a joke. I'm sure the majority if them don't hunt. Will find way more useful info here than on any of them.
orhunter wrote:Something else. We shouldn’t have to shop for dogs that are the correct size. In a perfect world, they are all the correct size (whatever that is) because breeders breed for “do it all dogs.”
flitecontrol wrote:orhunter wrote:Something else. We shouldn’t have to shop for dogs that are the correct size. In a perfect world, they are all the correct size (whatever that is) because breeders breed for “do it all dogs.”
In a perfect world, you would be right. But AFAIK, there are no restrictions on Griffon breeders, and many think their oversize, narrow chested, soft temperament, uncooperative, adverse to water, fuzzy coated WPG is a fine example of the breed and will want puppies from it. Those who are intrigued by the "scarce/different/funny looking" dogs, who don't know better, will buy their pups and in turn breed some of them.
While it would never be accepted in North America, there are advantages to the European Breed Warden system. For one thing, it eliminates the rose colored glasses most have regarding their dogs. All dogs considered for breeding would have to be tested and meet minimum standards in order to be approved for breeding. However, even that hasn't kept the WPG from declining in Europe or the increase in size of other versatile breeds. There just aren't enough good dogs with the desired physical and mental traits to improve the WPG, either here or in Europe.
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