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Member of:
Certified AKC CGC Evaluator and S.T.A.R Puppy Evaluator
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Warlock Dobermans, King Dobermans, Superior Size Dobermans, Super size Dobermans the list goes on and on of these terms that are all used to describe one thing. Great big Giant Dobermans. It all sounds romantic and desirable to our American side of Bigger equals better, and it is funny we have done it with nearly every breed of dog, effectively ruining what it once was. We don't produce oversized Dobermans at FamilyDobes and let me tell you why. First regardless of your Doberman persuasion, there is a breed standard for responsible breeders to breed towards. In the AKC Show Doberman they have a standard that creates a very elegant and sleek looking Doberman of a certain size. The FCI or World standard, commonly refferred to as the European standard creates a heavier boned dog with more muscle, but still of a certain size. Slightly larger than the AKC standard, but still under 100 pounds for males, and 80 pounds for females. Because that is the standard, that is what we breed for in size as well as adding in all the other important traits to our program such as temperament, working ability and health. I hear people often braggin about females that are 120 pounds or more and they claim they are not obese. When someone sets out to produce "Warlock" or "King" or "Superior" size Dobermans this is called Single trait selection. We are selecting size alone breeding biggest to biggest to create biggest in it's simplest form of explanation. The trouble is two fold with this kind of breeding program. First it is not what the Doberman was originally designed to be, and that was a medium size working dog. Refer to our History of the Doberman for more information. It was not created to be a giant Mastiff type dog or a great Dane, or anything other than what the Breed Standard describes. It is out of bounds because it isn't approaching the ideal goal for the breed, and at those giant sizes can no longer perform as it was intended. It is no longer a fast agile medium size working dog. Let alone the argument about idiots creating things such as Dober-Doodles and other such nonsense. So it is a deviation from what the Doberman should be. Secondly there are severe consequences for any single trait breeding program. When you are selecting for size alone or even size and some other trait, everything else goes out the window. Take an example from the chicken industry for example. They wanted bigger birds to sell since that is what we ultimately consume. They also wanted them to grow fast so they get to market sooner. The result as you can guess was there were some sacrifices made such as the hearts of the birds were never designed to sustain the bigger body, and they saw a higher incidence of heart failure. The legs were not designed to support the heavier bird, so the they saw more problems with movement, support and eventually lost the drumsticks from market. So then they tried to selectively breed for stronger hearts and legs and still keep the bigger birds and faster growth and they learned that they had developed other severe weaknesses as well. Now all of this was over several generations. With Chickens we can see two generations in one year, with dogs, we typically don't breed them until they are two or older so we see one generation every two years. So after spending say 8 years getting the size, how long do you think it will take to correct other problems we introduced? The point is a Larger Doberman is not what a Doberman should be. If you want a giant protection dog, look to breeds that are designed to be jus that, the heavy mastiff's. If you want a healthy well tempered and great working Doberman, stick to the standard, it took us 100 years to get this far, we shouldn't deviate from it drastically in 10 short years. |
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