How early in your rose blooming "season" do they flower? There are several famous, and hardy, roses that form a distinct group of their own that bloom at the beginning of the rose season. The canes of them are relatively thin and flexible. The foliage of them tends to be small and to have a ferny appearance.

Olga has several of them and they are favorites of hers. (Canary Bird is one of the ones in this group, and Rosa hugonis ("Father Hugo's rose") is another. Both of the ones I've linked to are singles, but there are some doubles, too. I don't know for certain that these two are hardy enough for you, but there are others and so I still wonder.)

Can you post some photos of what you've done so far? New laterals will sprout from the main canes you saved. Personally I would not cut those back by more than 1/3. As to guessing on variety some photos of the bloom, canes etc would help.

The colour and leaf type is similar to the canary bird. However, the blooms are at least double and grow in clusters, several flowers off a short fine lateral -- more blooms than the canary bird photo. It does bloom early and continues for a couple of weeks. There is a modest second bloom. The canes are as described: thin, long, and flexible. Not counting the ones I cut out, they were harder wood and I expect several years old. I had though I could cut off a plant that was offset from the main crown about 6 inches; however, there was one thick root and very few feeders. Of course one rose is right beside my front walk.

I don't have any pictures of the bushes in bloom. Just learning how handy digital photos are.

My next guess is Harison's Yellow.

The harison's yellow is close.

I did take some pictures. These could be considered nude photos but do show the structure of the rose. You can see the old twisted branches I want to prune.

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This is how the flowers are attached. I couldn't reach them to dead head. Do I need to dead head this rose -- it takes forever?
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My guess is that it's a Prairie rose that doesn't travel well, so we won't have the ability to ID it. It's in the same general family as Harison's Yellow, but with much, much nicer bush form.

My experience has been that canes on these types are quite long lived. So there isn't any reason to do any drastic pruning. Eventually, the really old canes will start turning a grey color. That's when you start getting serious about removing them. You can also wait until they are truly dead, or at least not producing the leaves and flowers the rest of the rose does. If you want to shorten the long canes a bit, feel free. I wouldn't cut off more than a third of the length, though, and I personally don't think I'd cut anything off. It really looks quite good right now, IMHO. No you do not have to deadhead it.

It sounds like what you are trying to do is one of the ways I prune gallicas. The big difference is that the canes on those roses can be very short lived. Getting three good, productive years from some gallica canes is typical, so it's very important to keep new canes coming along, and keep the old ones pruned out.

I second what mad gallica says. I wouldn't prune it shorter either. You can pillar it as it appears you have some long and flexible canes there or if it's willing to be free standing let it be. Those new long canes will sprout your new laterals.

From your first post it sounds like you have already taken out some old wood this year. You might want to stop with that and next year you take out more old wood to make room for new wood. Less is more!

Think of it more as rejuvenating than pruning.

When I clicked on york rose's guess link the blooms in the picture looked like the blooms on my rose. The form of the other bush isn't quite as neat.

The canes I have been taking out are gray or attacking passers-by. I have another established bush that is close to the front walk. I did move an off-shoot with some roots and planted it along my fence. It wilted quite a bit (It needed to be moved and I didn't cut it back). I'll see if it survived soon. There seems to be lots of canes left. Also, I've taken some cuttings and have them under jugs in my nursery. I have a corner lot with brown board fence that needs livening up.

Thanks for the help.