Even to this day this is how Rocky is when I donot take him for full runs out in the back field and have to play ball with him till he wears down a bit  in about 3 hours.

Both Britain and the US list the ideal bitch at 21" to 23" at the withers.  Germany (FCI) lists 22.5" to 23.75".  In the US a deviation of more than 1" is to be severely faulted, so in essense another inch either way, although not in the ideal, isn't faulted (making the actual non-faulted range from 20" to 24" for a bitch) -- similarly in FCI the deviation is 2 cm above and below.

Want to compare THE Kennel Club, AKC, and FCI GSP standards?  This is a little old but I think it is still accurate:

http://www.dogstuff.info/breed_standards_compared_byrne.html

At 22" the dam you were looking at is actually right smack in the middle of both THE Kennel Club's and The American Kennel Club's ideal height -- so that isn't bad. 

What is bad is lack of health testing.  In this modern day age, get as much health testing as you can.  Gosh knows there are many things that we can't test for (propensity to hereditary cancers, epilsey, and many other maladies) -- so narrow the odds -- even present phenotype testing won't absolutely rule out a disease (e.g. you could buy a puppy from a litter where both the sire and dam have OFA Excellent hips and end up with a dysplastic hip puppy), but you are narrowing the odds GREATLY of that happening.  And we now have to genotype tests that can absolutely rule out two diseases in our breed (short of a first generation mutation!) -- Cone Degeneration (Day Blindness), and Type II VwD.

Random thoughts -- sorry for rambling.

Dave

Marie- there are some very athletic bigger dogs, and Rocky may be one of them. HOWEVER: there are very real physical performance limitations as dogs get larger regardless of breed. Good build can mitigate some of this but certainly not all.

I personally would vote for a medium or lighter boned, narrow dog in the 45-50 lb range. The only problem is that leaves a whole lot under the hood to be evaluated from there... I'll gladly take a bigger or smaller dog with a great attitude and a degree of genetic aptitude. I own 2 really nice 30 lb females and I have been their biggest limiting factor, lol!

I second the "smaller is better" (within the standard of course) opinion IF your purpose is hunting. Not so in the conformation ring though. But our toughest, most tenacious hunter is our smallest female.

My next GSP will definitely be one of the smaller little cute GSPs. I will shovel her a path in deep snow. Buy her cute girl doggy jackets. Do beginning and intermediate manners classes , agility classes for fun . Never had a girl GSP so will be a whole new adventure. Hopefully she will have a sweet, moderate energy personality. Rocky is wonderful big boy and I do love him so much, but I can see after all you have written, Small GSPs are better over all.

Diet is certainly important, but there's a LOT of breeding that goes into a dog that can hold a hard pace all day and get up to do it again tomorrow. And this is where breeding outsite performance criteria falls short: a dog can be built very nicely but just not have what it takes mentally or physically to keep up. There is a lot that goes into a mammalian athlete that is invisible... metabolic processes, lactic acid tolerance, circulatory efficiencies, lung capacity, muscle fiber types, etc etc etc. Short of massive labwork (imagine doggie VO2 max/lactic acid threashold testing! ), we challenge the dogs on the ground to tell us who's dishing the goods.

A well bred, well fed, well conditioned 70lb dog is probably going to out-gun a 40lb dog without those advantages. And what's between the ears can trump anything of course! It's once those factors are accounted for that the size effect becomes more obvious.

I guess she's not that small then, i think i was just a bit shocked as mine is going to be fairly large, and i've not seen one her size before.

I was worried about the lack of hip scoring, so i contacted the breeder about it to see if she'd get her hip scored now.  She said that she'd phoned the vet to see how much it was, and would cost her £200 and take a good few weeks as the x-rays need to be sent to the british veterinary associaton to be scored then put on her KC certificate.  I'm sure people would pay £50 more for the pups should her scores come in low, so she'd recoup her money as there are 7 in the litter and they're only 1 1/2 weeks old so plenty of time.  But she also said that 'my bitch is a family pet and this will be her only litter so i don't really see the point in getting her scored'

Well, i think this is the crux of the matter and she doesn't actually get why they need to be done.

Never mind.  Back to the drawing board.  Such as shame as the dog she used is a great import, and for a few hundred pounds......

Thanks Gail, if she can't even have her done after whelping then that's totally made my mind up.  Definitely a no go.

Not being a breeder or ever around any hip testing  just wondering how the person who hip tests  does the test? Is it Xray or just range of motion to the back legs. Also is there a test for the shoulders? Does that mean your dog is less likely to develop any hip displasia diseases? Is it a Vet who does the hip testing or an AKC judging person?

Thank you Phyllis and CL66 for great information to a person like me who knows amost nothing about breeding dogs. Good to know from a puppy buyer prospective too as your average person doesnot know all the work, testing,training , showings ect a true GSP Breeder has to go thur.  You can see on the other thread about how much did you pay for your dog adoption, why the prices are what they are to cover the cost the breeder has to handle raising the pups to sale.  Greatly appreciated all the work you do to produce the best and healthiest dogs you can!!