Breed_education

TRANSLATION: Mrs R. Binder / Original Version : (FR).

ORIGIN: Switzerland.

DATE OF PUBLICATION OF THE OFFICIAL VALID STANDARD: 04.07.2011.

UTILIZATION: Companion and family dog.

FCI-CLASSIFICATION: Group 1 Sheepdogs and Cattle Dogs (except Swiss Cattle Dogs). Section 1 Sheepdogs. Without working trial.

BRIEF HISTORICAL SUMMARY: In the USA and Canada White Shepherd dogs have gradually become to be accepted as a distinct breed. The first dogs of this breed were imported to Switzerland in the early 70ies. The American male “Lobo”, whelped on 5th of March 1966, can be considered as the progenitor of the breed in Switzerland. The descendants of this male registered with the Swiss Stud Book (LOS) and other White Shepherd dogs imported from the USA and Canada, gradually multiplied. There now exists a big number of purebred over several generations White Shepherd dogs throughout Europe. These dogs have been registered as a new breed in the appendix of the Swiss Stud Book (LOS) since June 1991.

Numbers and statistics below from the database of the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals

of the White Swiss Shepherd as of December 31, 2024

OFA HIP RATING OVER RECENT YEARS

(Format of results: Name of result/ Number of dogs with that result/ % of cumulative tested with that result)

Across the years 2021-2024, we do not see much change in overall health of our breed in the area of hip dysplasia, but admittedly four years of data is not a statistically significant amount of historical data to study. However, there are studies where using the OFA method for selecting breedstock for hip quality has NOT drastically improvement a breed’s hip quality over time. One such example tabulation of tens of thousands of dogs and decades of time in the Labrador Retriever. When the mean phenotype for hip conformation does not significantly improve over 50 years, perhaps other methods should be considered for screening, either in addition to, or instead of OFA for hip evaluations. See Article discussing the Labrador. WSSCA very much supports White Swiss Shepherd owners to consider using the services of PennHIP, Vet Scoring in Australia, or even INCOC in Finland. These other rating systems give ratings that are not subjective based on breed, sex like OFA. These other systems also give final ratings at one year of age when growth plates are just closed which is aligned with how the rest of the world handles radiographic clearances. These alternative rating systems also give ratings for each hip, rather than one rating that covers both hips. Rarely are hips bilaterally identical on conformation and for breeders to have a data for each hip can be useful information. Below is a brief summary of alternative methods of hip evaluations.