Understanding "Speed" in the GSD Show Dogs
German Shepherd is a trotting breed and has been bred with "Endurance" in the forefront of mind. So, obviously when we talk about speed, we mean trotting pace. Some dogs exhibit lengthy strides, while others comparatively short strides. During a trot a dog can increase its trotting pace in two ways:
1. Increases the number of strides in a given span of time. This means the frequency of strides is increased
2. Increases the length of the strides.
Almost all the good specimens in the world have been noticed to initially increase the stride length to increase the trotting pace. After reaching a certain level of pace, the dog fails to increase its stride length. This is the Optimum Stride Length Point, from where the dog tends to increase the number of steps in order to speed up its trot.
However, some dogs have tendency increase the frequency of the strides from the beginning itself instead of stretching the stride length. In such situations the dog's efficiency gets compromised, because it needs to takes more number of steps to cover the same amount of ground that is covered by the dog that use Lengthy Stride. Therefore the dogs that use increased Lengthy Strides are usually preferred over the other counterpart (the dogs that have tendency to increase stride frequency from the beginning) by a judge.
I have seen people (spectators) in many show grounds clapping and cheering dogs that exhibit speedy trots with high stride frequency from the beginning. We need to remember that German Shepherd is a trotting breed at the first place. Speed isn't the criteria of his beauty. The dog wasn't bred to run fast, but to trot miles consistently and steadily. His beauty lies in his ability of consistent, effortless and rhythmic trotting for a long span of time with firmness of back, covering maximum amount of ground as possible even longer stride. If dog increases the speed by increasing the stride frequency then he will suffer a shortage of energy after a short spell of time.
Below embedded the video of the legendary Vegas du Haut Mansard, exhibiting his very rhythmic trot, originally uploaded by fontedasbicas
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