World Sieger Show Prologue with Mr. Christian Lang
Today we’re joined by Mr. Christian Lang. Mr. Lang is judging the working class Females of the German Sieger show 2024.
This can be called the World Sieger Show, because this is the biggest stage for the German shepherd breed. and Mr. Lang, in effect, is judging the future of the breed by judging the adult working females, the future mothers of the breed. So, Welcome Mr. Lang.
CL: Hello! Nice to be here again. Everything is fine, ready for the weekend.
AK: Great. So let’s just dive right into it and start by talking about which are the featured sires that you think are prevalent in the females that you’ve seen so far in the season leading unto the Sieger Show.
CL: The upcoming event, the the Sieger Show as you called it the the World Championship, it’s just the the top of the season. The event starts in my opinion in the winter time with the 1st shows, with the Sieger show judge and it cumulates in the the final appearance of the females in the ring. So far right now, I had around 315 females in the stock coat classes, and around 140 females in the Long stock classes to judge. We have entered around 190 stock coat females, and around 75 Long stock coat females. We will see how many will show up but for me. It’s the the total number that went into competition with me, showing their females, wanting to know if theres a chance for a good placement or not.
we have around 100 in the competition next Sunday. And that’s about it. No, we had then for those who were which I didn’t see so far, so I guess it will be around 350 females in the competition, and it’s the the top top that remains in the ring Saturday and Sunday. So that’s an important thing for me to point out, because the competition starts way earlier than it’s just the event in itself.
AK: Interesting that you point that out. it’s always been my understanding as well. It’s say, there’s a culmination into the Sieger show. but it is done. So so it’s not just that one snapshot you get of the dogs. You get to see the dogs over a multiple month period repeatedly amongst multiple females. Where, the competition could be varied, could be the same. Females in the top group could be multiple females coming from different places, different countries, let’s say, depending on the area you’re judging in. So the dogs can have the best possible chance for you to evaluate them, and not just that one day. So there’s not like the dog has one bad day, because there is at the end of the day a breed show, not just a dog show, not a pageantry.
CL: Sure, thats exactly the point, and thats what we need to put the focus on because the people from what i recognize they are disappointed by the possibility to be around V50-60 from the last event, its actually V50 from a total of 350 high quality females, and theyre in the winning group already if they made it to the final event. because facing the competition towards the end means, a total that they follow the breed event until it’s it’s done, and it’s done with the with the placement at the Sieger show, and it’s not done before by saying, I don’t want to compete, because the 30, 40, 50, or 60 is not enough for me, because I have higher expectations. It’s not about expectations. It’s about following the the competition. Towards the end.
AK: That’s that’s a great point out. What about the fathers of the females which father lines do you think are prevalent right now in the competition that you have so far picked.
CL: so far from the the females shown we have. The the most number of progeny is from Usher. We had lots of females from Reno, and several females from Mio and Wakron, these were the the top producers in the competitions I had to judge so far. Followed by Tell Ghattas, ASAP and Nero Ghattas. From Long coats we had Grizzly Herbramerwald.
AK: So we can say Remo Fichtenschlag, has been the most prevalent. Of course, which is a natural cause and effect of him being the father of all these males that were promoted to top places in the previous years, or the previous seasons before you, when the Sieger show was judged so naturally, the winning sires that would emerge from Remo.
CL: Yeah, it was quite difficult to to find females without any influence of Remo. If everything works out, we will have other blood in the top groups as well, but not as much as I hoped for, so we will, we will have, but I cannot. Just for the line, oversee the the quality, that’s that’s the point. But we have I mean, we have 4 or 5 without any Remo, or and then we have another 5 or 6 in the predicted first 30 females without O-Litter Radhaus in Stock coats and in Long Coats in the predicted top group, we have more females without remo but its not close to half/half.
AK: So do you have any prevalence of dogs from yesterday or before? Really more? You know, we had at 1 point we had Vegas that was very heavily featured. Before that we had Zamp Thermodos that was very heavily featured. At 1 point we only saw dogs from Quenn from Loherweg. Do you think we can break away from this popularity contest? And we can go to males that are maybe not so popular, or maybe it could be even from a different gene pool, lets say, Leistung lines, Could that ever feature into a top group in the breed event, where the dogs could actually be more harmonized.
CL: In the competition, when you judge these strong classes, just because they’re from different lines, the people will not understand why a dog of a lesser quality or perception is placed in the front, they can say he should not be in in a top place, and you cannot explain at that point why it should be there. You can explain afterwards and say, This is a dog, I think, should be promoted because of the lines, but I doubt the people will follow. Even for me this year, I wanted to look for females with a better body harmony, more like the the standard, is slightly stretched. I wanted to have those females. I don’t want them to be too short, too curvy, too sloping in the topline and the croup, and even that was sometimes hard to understand for the people what what I expect from from the from the females. After the second or 3rd show. I guess the people understood that I don’t like those short ones with the the the low withers, with the extremely curvy backs, the extremely sloping croups, but of course thats my opinion. You never know if that will continue in the next year, if that will continue in the head of the people or not. But I think it’s the only way that the breed will accepted in the future. If we don’t leave those extreme dogs out of the picture, the breed will have no more acceptance in the next 5-10 years.
AK: Yes, because the normal families that would be the target audience of most of these puppies, because not every female from those 300 females is going into competitive homes when they have litters, so most of the puppies would end up with families. and it’s almost unacceptable for most people to have a dog that they have to wait maybe 15 months, that the dog can even walk normally. Oh, yeah, the the breeders always like, Yeah, yeah, she’ll grow out of it, or he’ll grow out of it. But they’re looking at a dog like it’s disabled in the family. It can’t do normal things. It can’t jump, it can’t run. It might hurt its ligaments, hurt a knee or something as it’s trying to just walk around and this is definitely a big failing from our previous judges, I think, which have led us to this path where these dogs have become a part of the Zeitgeist in the German Shepherd Breed.
CL: I am trying to point out what I am looking for in the females, the future will tell if that is a good point of view or not.
AK: Absolutely. No, I mean, it’s it’s what the brief standard State. So it says, you need a slightly stretch balance dog, which is a normal working dog that can work long hours, as we like to call it, the moving fence. And if it’s not an efficient structure, the fence will not move.
CL: Yes, True.
AK: And so which out of these fathers that we we had mentioned, so we had the influence of Remo, especially coming from Usher vom Brunnenstrasse, and then through Gary Huhnegrab from his sons Wakron, Do you think that this is too much of a concentration of the same blood. And do we need to find an alternative in the breed? Not just not just from these families, but just in the breed? Do we need a more diverse alternative, or and might we might we be heading towards inbreeding depression.
CL: Sure if we could find more variety, it definitely would be a good thing, but I just don’t see where it should come from, we have Some males are still out of the picture with with the high concentration of Remo but of course the females from this side. They need to go through those, and then it’s a mixture mixture again, so we will just move it to the next generation. But the problem will still be there. But, as I said already, you can’t place them without, If you don’t have them.
AK: True, And then there’s no acceptance, for, like you said earlier, if you’re trying to do something out of the box. I remember when Javir talka Marda was placed in the top 50 dogs, and there was such a Hue and cry about it. I think, the then breed warden’s point was the need to promote a dog that is the universal Sieger with pronounced drives that can maybe add something to the breed which is a part of the breed, and it was met met with much skepticism. Even though he had children with a VA female that were shown. And it’s always just kind of looked down upon by the mainstream in the breed. And this actually might be the only way out of the hole we have dug for ourselves.
So the issue of you know again the inbreeding depression, where, of course, when we have only got a limited number of fathers, then we’ve got only daughters coming from those fathers. And then some popular sons coming out of adjacent dogs, then only as limited number of females coming from those dogs. So the so if we had the genetic base this wide, it just keeps narrowing down because of these popular size, and in the last few years. Most of the Va dogs come from one or 2 males, so we’re making it even smaller and smaller. And then it’s like a vicious cycle where you have the future judges like you have no choice but to pick from those females, because no other males got breeding, and they got bred out of the breed. Essentially so. There is no children from your own from house, Yerom from the Mark Schwarmbachtal line, or there are no children really coming over the Alf and Rolf line outside of the 3 males that were there in I’m talking about in the 40s. We got the 3 Pillars, They all came from the same male, from from Alf. Even some of the working lines came from Alf.
and then we’re going towards the direction where we had, Let’s say Romeo Pallas Athena and Drago Pallas Athena, They’ve pretty much disappeared. They never stayed in the mainstream because we were at that time promoting, sons of Ursus Batu. we had only children from Yasko von Farbenspiel. Then we had only children from Zamp Thermodos. We had multiple sons from Quenn, the only representative of the Hill line was not from none, and from the hill line we had Dux de Cuatro Flores. But he was not really a representative of the father line. He looked like the motherline, and then these genes getting diluted and lost over time, because sometimes we are obsessed with big heads, sometimes we’re obsessed with bigger dogs, sometimes we are obsessed with more hair, or whatever might be the theme of the tenure of the breed Warden.
Going down this path, for whatever reason the selections might have been taking place, there’s only left just a handful of males from one or 2 lines that have all the children. So now we are a conundrum that we have a corner that we have painted ourselves in. What do you think the Sv, Who’s the leader of the German shepherd of the world, with the biggest population of breeders and people who have done this for over a hundred years, address this issue?
CL: Answering this question will require a whole evening for a breed seminar. I’m not in the position to advise what they will do. We discuss it in the Council of the Breed wardens. But of course, also the the breed warden or the judges for the male classes. They face the same problems like like I do and the decisions need to be accepted by the breeders and if they don’t follow these decisions by using these males nothing will change. You can’t force the breeders to use males from alternative bloodlines. It’s up to the breeders to do it. And as long as it’s not in the head of the breeders that it’s their responsibility to to look out for the gene pool. Nothing will change. we can only give advice for the readers, but what they choose, what they pick that’s up to them. And in my opinion. we need to work firstly on the phenotype that it is more acceptable again, and then we can try to change the genetic variety. But we cant change everything right away.
AK: It’s a slow and painful process, that’s for sure, because we came down this path so far. Now we have to go back up that path to choose another one.
CL: Exactly.
AK: Could you please shed some light on working ability of the females? Where does the working ability and the character of the female class lies right now in your opinion, what stood out to you, and what you think could need more improvement?
CL: I hope you remember that I wanted the females to do their individuals without leash, and also without external motivation. So in the beginning it was quite chaotic for some people and for me it was quite absurd that it was so hard for some people to accept it and to follow it because in theory all these females have working titles and it should not be so problematic to go up and down without just saying “foos”. I am not a hard liner for working, so don’t get me wrong, but having a dog to walk with me at first command should not be so hard.
You can’t imagine how the 1st shows went, and how the the people, how the people looked at me like I was the I was coming from Mars, asking them to do now up and down off leash, with no ball. SO nevertheless, there was a gentleman who was actually at several shows as a spectator to watch the shows, not for showing. And he came to the 1st show, some shows in between, and also the last show, and at the last show, He mentioned something, he said You could see an improvement in preparation of the females from the beginning of the season towards the end of the season, and what you also can see is the people spend more time with their dogs, because you can’t perform in the ring like we expect them to perform by only doing it with pressure. You can’t have an object to motivate them, it has to be you as a team.
Forcing the people to deal with their dogs in a different way, If that’s the only thing that worked within this year then I am proud because that means the dogs have more communication with their owners, what also worked out that the females were able to do it which of course is no surprise, even those who were skeptic managed it. I think we need to find a different way to decipher working ability outside of just bite work.
AK: Absolutely. The essence of what we seem to forget with the working titles, especially with the ” show people” is They’re looking at it as a barrier to entry instead of a chance to engage with their dogs. And every time you see the heeling picture to the blind, its a dog under a lot of pressure, to stay with the owner, and then just get away from the owner to make the bite to the helper. But it should be that the dog is excited to go to the helper, and he’s just staying with the owner, not from pressure, This is a part of the game that we played to teach the dog to, and then same thing can be in obedience. Why does it need to be pressure to be next to me. Why cannot be a pleasant thing to be with me?
CL: Exactly, and that’s what I tried to to look at. I was not super strict. If if a dog didn’t do it the 1st time. Then they tried a second time. So and if they went off the field, okay, then they then it was some result in the placement. Yeah, but I’m not there to to judge if they did the heeling properly or not. Those who who understood what, what was, why I did that you could see that they worked with their dogs, and that’s something I also appreciate by placement.
AK: So do you think we have gone to far with the working tests? A friend of mine, and I like to call them bean counters. So these judges that are just counting points like beans. that have no consideration for the dog’s character, but more for the training? That is what’s become of the sport, in its transformation, from Schutzhund to IGP; In the almost 40 years that you have been in the sport, of being actively involved, you have titled several dogs yourself from the beginning, and you have seen it change first hand. Don’t you think it would be discouraging for most new people today, how our world has evolved, that the sport evolved to more a sport competition, but to have something else for breeding tests like SV instituted the WB, which is the puppy character assessment test, with which the Sv did a fabulous job, which tests the young dogs quite rigorously. Do you think, as far as the IGP titles now go, could we have something different that would test these dogs, character would establish a baseline of character that we demand of our dogs, but not so much be a training test since the training doesn’t have much to do with the genetic quality of the dog.
CL: The SV established a few years ago the ZAP. We are awaiting FCI acceptance worldwide. If a dog is able to do the basics of the ZAP, then you know the dog is properly trained. He is obedience trained, tracking trained, bite work trained, but without the measurement or point counting of the IGP Sport. If the people like to go into sports like Igp sports, then they should do it, why not? And then, therefore the Igp titles are there. So that’s my opinion. But we will see if that will work out or not.
AK: So, but for the zap as far as my understanding goes, and please correct me if I’m wrong, it’s not acceptable for a dog in a VA Group to just has their ZAP. He must have Igp titles as of now, but you can get a breed survey with just zap titles. My question to you would be If it’s good enough to breed from, why can it not be in the VA Group? Are we promoting 2 different standards?
CL: In the Bundesversammlung, we wanted to change the regulations but were opposed from some club members and It was declined. So it didn’t go through, If we have to ask for greater acceptance of the test by the membership, it should function as a stand alone test for VA eligibility in my view.
AK: Have you seen any children from these females that you’re looking for the top group? And what kind of children are they producing? And what do you hope for the future from them?
CL: I expect the females especially when it comes to VA title, they should be breeding females. So from almost every female that I considered for my VA group, I saw progeny from them. From the working stock coat females, 64 females have been bred before, and 28 of them are presenting progeny at the Sieger Show. In my opinion, the Sieger Show isn’t only a beauty contest, but a breeding contest. Where their beauty and their ability to produce needs to be judged and thats why I made it clear from the start that no female without a litter will be in VA and no female without shown progeny will be able to improve their position.
AK: That’s that’s commendable, I would say, because normally it’s just an assumption for the males that they need to have a progeny on the ground for the top group. Its important to point out that even the females should have children before they can expect the top places.
CL: I’m not in the position to criticize the the previous judgments, But I think if you’re not able to find females that are already in the breed for VA spots, then you should give less VA spots.
AK: I wanted to ask you about the problem that has emerged over maybe the last decade or so of the forehand height to depth proportions being completely distorted, We address the height to length proportions, and the exaggerated rear quarters with the croups falling off and dogs not being functional as a result, Do you have a lot of females that have problems with the forehand proportions this year?
CL: There’s only few that I will would describe at the with deep chest proportions. Overall, those who were in the competition So far, Are okay. But of course we need. We need to face the situation, especially on the female side is trending to 50/50 and that is not what we expect it to be. But it’s still in the in a tolerable range, I would say.
AK: As a throwback to the ring chaos we spoke about, you had made a post on social media about ring presentation, which got a lot of traction online, Could you please shed some light on that?
CL: I wanted to point out that handlers and spectators are looking just for the speed of the dog. If a dog is fast, that is not a problem. But, if we have a presenter who is older or his physically challenged, and he does the off leash with his dog, then we are forcing him to stay out of the competition and thats not okay. If the dog heels correctly and exhibits a proper trot in the pace of its handler, then I can judge and compare to the others in the group. Ofcourse there are instances, even with a slow handler, the dog falls behind, Then it has nothing to do with the age or ability of the handler and its the dog or its prep. I want to point out again that the people stay calm and not start whistling or yelling. If there is a group of 6 females, and and there is a gap because one handler is not physically able to sprint and keep up with the group, That’s not okay. We need to be fair and stay fair to the people who want to compete, even when they’re getting older. And even when they are not that fit anymore, like we used to be 20 years ago.
AK: I can definitely sympathize with that! What breeding recommendations would you offer the top group of females that are going to be presented under you?
CL: It is hard enough for me to choose for my females a good partner, so I cannot think of those 30 females in the the top positions to choose the right partners, we have a variety of high quality males and everybody needs to to find their way. Some make good decisions, some make bad decisions, and then it’s up to the judges to to to see if the outcome is good or not.
AK: What were the highlights of the season that stood out to you?
CL: We had 3 highlight shows. The LG show in my LG in Wittenberg was a very good completion with very high quality females. We had 30 my the class with 20 really exceptional females. The we had two even bigger shows, one in Dümmer, with 35 or so females and the last show in Wimmelburg for the stock coat classes, its always nice to grow with the class throughout the year. Lets a female is shown in spring, Now in summer. How did she do the work? How did she do with the condition? It’s also it will also be interesting to see them next weekend If my expectations will be fulfilled or not. So there were a lot of highlights, I would say. What i really liked besides some not so nice appearances in and outside the ring, the competition was fair, the people accepted most of the time what my decisions were. Some discussions, of course because not everyone is happy with the judgement. I have to deal with that and thats fine. But, overall, it didn’t look like that the people were too disappointed because the quality of each class was so high. With the 350 females that were presented so far, I had only a handful of females that I would say aren’t V rated, even in the back ends of the classes, we had high quality. Everyone keeps generally complaining that the quality is declining and i would say no, the quality that i had to judge was very high especially if those females find use in the breed.
AK: Yeah, like you had mentioned. The people who always like to talk about doom and gloom can never see the silver lining. So they’re all always there. There will always be great dogs. There will always be good dogs, and there will always be bad dogs. If you just keep focusing on the dark. We can never see the light. You adjusted my point of view slightly in our previous conversations that we have to look and cherish the good before we keep on finding the bad in the breed.
What did you not like, as far as the shows went, and the atmosphere went, What was something that you would pick on that we could improve as a community?
CL: Actually, I can’t complain about the sportsmanship. As I said a few exceptions. But overall. That was that was fine. We had only few tactical shows a big number of entered female didn’t show up. That was not the case. We had in only few in each class, even when in the big classes we had only few that were missing, so that was good. The people accepted what I was expecting from them with off leash without the motivation. Most of them were prepared. I pointed out at beginning of of also one of our conversations that I want the competition to be there and the people were prepared for the competition. So that that was okay. if if some dog I expected to be better, didn’t do well, then then he lost spots. But that this doesn’t mean that he cannot gain them again at the next appearance. So everything was, was quite okay. So I need to say thank you to the, to the breeders to owners and handers for being in the competition so far, and I hope it will not change the upcoming weekend.
AK: This was really interesting, that when you said, you know, looking at the same dog throughout the season, so seeing its maturity from spring through summer and expecting it to go a certain way. Let’s see how it does next weekend you had mentioned in our second conversation. Mr. Herman Martin, the way he used to judge when I’d press you on and ask you about your judging procedure, and you’d said you know, he would look at the dogs in each class, and if even if he made a mistake. He’d request the dog to come to the next show, and we’ll see what we where she fits in the group. Did you follow the same procedure?
CL: Well, those shoes were way are way too big for me, so I would not. I would not compare me or my judging with with Herman Martin’s judging. I judged as if I presented my dog, that I, personally, would say, just even if the result wasn’t perfect, the way judge looked at the dog and tried to find out if the dog fits there was okay for me. So that’s something. To summarize at some point, one would say it was good to show under Christian Lang, because that that was like how we used to show. Then it’s then I’m happy.
AK: I would like to point to our audience that judges are humans too and humans can make mistakes, I would like to know what you feel like when you grew up in the sport watching all these people, you know in the ring, judging, with their Trench Coats and formal attire and exhibitors in parachute pants and track suits, one sees all these photos from decades ago, of the old shows in Germany and now you are in those shoes judging in the big ring, how does that feel?
CL: Well, thats kind of far away, the only thing I sometimes think of is it’s sad that that My dad passed away that early because I guess he would have fun Joining me with the shows and being in the ring and telling me afterwards if that was okay or not. So that’s something I’m missing, and that’s something I’m sad about other than that times changed. You can’t compare the situations, 30, 40 years ago to now. That’s total, different different situation and the total different behavior of the people of the judges.
For me, I’m I’m not wearing a tie, so let’s see if I will be forced to wear a tie next weekend. I have no idea. That’s something I only wear is when I get need to go to court. So that’s about it. So, but that’s something that would have never happened with the judges in the former days. And also I’m no fan of comparing the times, we need to make the best of the situation we have. We can’t bring the old days back, and need to make the best of the situation we have. Only the future will tell if the olden days were better or not. What we can do is the best of our ability and enjoy the moment we are in and not gripe about the old days. Not just me, despite all the pressure I put on myself for judging but I try to be in the moment, and thats about it.
AK: What do you think is better now than we did 20-30 years ago, in in the atmosphere, in the scene and the culture in the German shepherd breed?
CL: The communication between the judge and hander is definitely better now. In the former days you could hardly talk to them. The distance was so big and that has now reduced and thats a good thing, as long as it stays respectful. Everybody needs to realize at when it comes to the show day, It’s not your pal Christian in there, at this point its judge Christian, in my opinion, most people understand that It’s me judging, and if they want to show their dogs, they need to accept what I see and afterwards we can be friendly again.
AK: And what one thing would you like to bring back from the past if you if you had a time machine? And if you could change.
CL: 10,000 puppies more registered 1,000 dogs more entered in the Sieger Show, and in each show, in every Sunday at least 100 dogs more.
AK: What’s 1 message you would give to that young Christian, that young boy who was fascinated by the German shepherd as a child. Now that you know all that you know now, what would you tell that child, Christian: what to expect, and where where things would go.
CL: Believe in what you try to achieve.
AK: That is beautiful, Thank you for that conversation, sir. It was truly my pleasure that you took the time out of your busy schedule to join me.
CL: Thank you. It was a pleasure for me, too. and all the best to you and your family.