| Hi, my name is Tina Barber and I would like to provide
you with a little history about "Shiloh Shepherds™."
When I
came to America things were very different from what I grew up with, the only source of
comfort I had came from my dogs. They provided a strong emotional link for me, between my
past and future. As soon as I mastered the language well enough I started visiting as many
breeders as I could find. I then met the owner of a very large kennel, which was in the
process of expanding! Immediately I offered to help clean her kennels, groom her dogs,
etc. for free, just so I could be near these beautiful animals! Since both of her
daughters were grown and gone, and never showed much interest in her hobby anyway, it
didn’t take long before she practically adopted me!
In 1962 I wanted to start building my own reputation, and chose Konigin
for my kennel name. I had researched all of the top kennels around, and seen some dogs at
the shows Margo took me to, so I knew what I wanted. I already had a Liebestraum and a
Wikingerblut female, now I wanted to expand. Odin von Busecker Schloss, was my
idea of
near perfection, I felt that his lines would cross well with my girls. Yet I was missing
some of the confident temperaments I needed for the strenuous Schutzhund competitions I
planned to train for. The Piastendamm dogs solved that problem for me quickly! Although
not as big as I had hoped for, their temperaments were impeccable! When combined with the
superior intelligence of the Liebestraum lines, this was an unbeatable combination!
Over the next decade I devoted every spare minute I had to my dogs. I
degreed 14 Schutzhund dogs for NASA, while still participating in as many show circuits as
I could squeeze in! I truly believed then, and still do today, that the (true) German
Shepherd is the most awesome breed of dog on earth! It was no wonder that they became so
popular! What other breed can you find that can earn a Sch 3 in the morning….baby-sit
your children in the afternoon……..and lead a blind person safely across the
streets of NYC that evening? Like my friend Chuck (owner & trainer of the famous TV
"Littlest Hobo" stars) would say, you don’t train these dogs, you
teach
them!
The popularity of these magnificent dogs skyrocketed quickly! It
seemed like, nearly everyone wanted a German Shepherd. This brought the "backyard
breeders" out in droves. They quickly outnumbered the dedicated conscientious
breeders, and "flooded" the market with inferior quality animals that should never
have been bred. The results from their actions can be seen everywhere. I never intended to
"change" the breed, my goals back then were to preserve the
"type" that I was so in love with. The big, mentally sound, beautiful
dogs I grew up with! My first focus was on the hips. Once I realized what a problem this
was becoming within the breed, as a trainer I knew that hips had to be the number 1
priority! I had seen perfectly sound dogs do things that were not "temperament"
related, like biting a small child! Some of these dogs had such a low pain tolerance that
their personality would change because of the pain they were in. Just as people react
differently to pain, (some can handle a lot more then others) dogs also have a variety of
levels they can deal with, and once that level is reached their personality can be
effected. It does not matter how beautiful a dog is, if he is in pain and his temperament
is effected, this dog is no good to himself or anyone else! It was for this reason that I
started to research ways of improving this situation, you can read the full details in my
LMX article.
In 1974 I had made some drastic changes in my life. It was that winter that I changed my kennel
name to "Shiloh Shepherds™." There was a very important reason for this,
and you can read the entire story if you click on to,
What’s in a Name.
Within a few years I knew that I had to devote even more time to
these dogs, I sold my beautiful new colonial in an affluent suburb of Rochester, and moved
to a large farm with no neighbors. By
the late seventies I had over a hundred dogs in kennel, and produced dozens of litters per
year. After nearly twenty years of experience working with the various available
bloodlines, I had selected 3 specific lines that I chose to inbreed on in order to
determine more genetic information. These lines were then out-crossed to each other, and my
foundation was finally solidified, nevertheless I continued to breed
"experimental" litters in order to collect valuable data on my chosen
bloodlines, as well as information on their compatibility with other
out-crossed/inbred
lines. My focus was always on Superior
Size…. LMX Hips…. & Sound Temperaments, as you can see from some
of the Dog World ads that I ran during those decades!
Shiloh Shepherds™ ad in Dog Fancy circa 1985
By the late eighties I found another inbred line that seemed to be very
compatible with my (Ria, Ursa, Kari) lines. More details about these dogs are available in
the book I wrote for the SSDCA, Inc. You can download
The Origins of the Shiloh Shepherd™ in word and picture,
from our Learning
Center.
Many articles have already been written about the "switch"
from AKC to the "Rare Breed" world. My intentions were to further protect my
lines, unfortunately things did not work out as I had planned. I had tried very hard to
avoid the pitfalls that led to the downfall of the German Shepherd by developing a very strict registry based on the
(SV) that worked so well in Germany, without realizing what a powerful force greed can be!
With the demand for Shiloh Shepherd™ puppies reaching unbelievable proportions, some
"breeders" insisted on choosing a different path,
creating
confusion. Nevertheless a large group of ISSR breeders are totally dedicated to continuing on the path that I started for this
breed! With our intense TCCP database, and our new Relationship Coefficient program our future looks brighter then ever! If you would like to learn more
about these dogs, or just stay updated on all new developments, I would like to urge you
to join the SSDCA, Inc.
Tina Barber
New Zion Shilohs
Update on Tina's Fire
and New Home of Zion
Kennel
Tina's Testimony
1987 |
Sharing:
April 2000 |
Sharing:
August 2000
The Shiloh
Shepherd Story |
Additional
Articles by Tina M. Barber |
About the Shiloh Shepherd Breed Founder
| Celebrating 45
Years of the Shiloh Shepherd! | |
