Bob's Dog Blog

I realized a few months ago, after owning dogs for the better part of my life, that I did not realistically understand the immune system of a canine. Unfortunately, I had been sucked into the medical community’s fear mongering about parvo and other diseases as a way to leverage more money into the pockets of the veterinarian. This is a page taken from the human medical practice, where there is a hidden disease lurking around every corner and actions MUST be taken to become immunized against the latest virus or germ.

What this has done, in both human and canine health, is to seriously compromise the same immune systems that we are being told the vaccines and antibiotics are taking care of.  Here are some related questions worthy of further research:

1. Do antibiotics in fact destroy beneficial bacteria, which are vital to maintain normal digestion and other body functions?  I’m not saying you never should give antibiotics to a dog to handle infection. What I am saying is that the animal then needs a thorough replenishing of intestinal flora. Otherwise you are throwing the baby out with the bath water.  Probiotics are available in human grade that will stay in the dog’s intestines long enough to redevelop. Otherwise, you are opening the door to other infections and issues from a weakened immune system.

2. Does immunization benefit a puppy prior to four months of age? I have been told by more than one vet that the ‘puppy shots’ given at eight weeks, etc are pretty much ineffectual against viruses, since the pup is still being protected by the mother’s colostrum. So, why do it? Because every time you bring a pup to the vet, it costs you thirty or forty bucks, that’s why. Here is an interesting article on Leerburg’s site about immune systems, vaccinosis and vaccinations. The only shots I give now are to satisfy legal requirements when a pup is sold, or after 16 weeks (one shot for the life of the dog), which ever comes first. This business of continuous vaccinating a dog because “my vet says so” is simply the owner listening without really researching the facts. Study, learn and decide for yourself.

3. Does diet, exercise and exposure to normal environments help build up the canine immune system? I was told many years ago by a well known local Rottweiler breeder/handler (who was also a successful canine holistic health practitioner) that he would always take his pups out wherever he went to help build up the immune system. This follows the facts regarding immune systems in humans. If you were to stay in your house and never breathe the outside air or expose your body to other humans, animals, environments, etc , then you would never give the body the chance to adapt and develop normal immunities. Immunity is what the body naturally develops to survive. I know of people who never leave their house, who then develop continuous allergies, infections and general declining health.

So, research this subject, get all of the facts that are available and develop judgement on the subject of your dog’s immune system. The healthier the dog, the fewer the vet visits!

Anyone working on training their dog in basic obedience or competitive obedience has at one time or another used motivation to get their young dog or pup to follow a command. Some dogs like the food more than the toy and other dogs really like the toy so much that they can go pretty far with the toy alone. Of course, training without motivation gives you a dog that simply goes through the motions, either through fear or submission.

However, sometimes using the toy isn’t enough motivation. For example, I have some pups that easily climb up steps to go into the house (you’ll see why later in the post). The problem came when we tried to get them down those same steps. There just wasn’t motivation for them to follow the toy as the stress that had to be overcome in figuring out how to climb down steps was greater than their drive for the toy. So, in this case, dropping bits of kibble on each step with a big kibble reward and lots of praise at the bottom did the trick right away. Five or sex reps later and they are getting the hang of it. At some point, I will move over to the toy/praise to continue conditioning and motivate to do the action called for. Which brings me to the next issue.

If you attempt to use food for motivation while doing, let’s say, heeling or leash work, then the pup will start to anticipate food as the motivational tool every time heeling or leash work is begun. They will expect the food and when you bring out the toy, they are suddenly not interested in the toy at all. This is not a drop in drive, but a conflict that the dog now has as regards the game you are playing. I mean, you just spent a week using kibble or hot dogs or whatever food to get the dog to heel or sit and now you are trying with a ball. At this early stage of training a dog, you are mixing basic drives and the dog may become confused.

The solution is to learn to think with your motivational tools. For example, I use food in the house, getting pups or young dogs to sit or come or load up in the crate. This gets the pups really excited about coming in at the end of the day, loading into their crates, etc. I already gave the example of walking down steps.

Outside, on the field, I use the toy most of the time, especially in the first stages of puppy training.  Some times I switch things up. For instance,  we sometimes use a bit of food on the field to motivate the pup in heeling, for position or to train more precise movement.  This is not consistent, so the pup is not always expecting food, so it is not conditioning the pup to constantly expect food on the field.

You will need to experiment with both methods to see where your pup or dog does best. This is a lot of fun as you can also learn a lot about your dog’s drives and motivation, which in turn will help you in getting your dog to do what you want, which is the point of dog training!

And, remember to always praise your pup for doing the command, regardless of the motivational tool.

Have fun!

Dog training is for everyone. It is for every dog and every household.  It is the key missing ingredient in any issue a person may have with his dog, regardless of breed type.

Obedience is not native to a canine mind. The issue here is one of the nature of a dog. Dog’s are inclined to do what they want, when they want. Without structure, a dog is lost. Man has spent thousands of years domesticating this animal and that bond is the key to obedience training.  The history of the canine is filled with examples of how man has trained his dog to do work and be a part of man’s life. Hunting, protection, transportation and even companionship all involve training the dog to suit both the handler and his environment.

As I said earlier, obedience is not natural for a dog. Leaving obedience up to the dog is a grave error and will simply ruin the dog. Dogs must have this area of their lives addressed before they can become valuable to their handlers. Some dogs learn faster than others. Some like obedience training better than others. That is the responsibility of the handler, using motivation methods to get the dog wanting to learn new things, and so on. It is also the handler’s job to correct the dog after it has learned what is expected of it.  Teaching and then correcting the dog  is 100% the handler’s job.

Omitting patience and repetition invites failure in training. By patience I mean taking a good, hard, realistic look at your dog and decide what you need or want to train it to do. Then, with that in mind work on it as long as it takes to accomplish that goal. That doesn’t mean fooling around with the ‘sit’ command  for a day or two, then giving up.  By repetition, I mean doing the exercises as many times as is needed to get that goal accomplished. I train my pups to sit and ‘watch’ every time they come to the door of my house. After a month, they’ve done that command fifty or sixty times, just at the door. They do it before being given food. That’s another sixty reps. It adds up.

Do you want to know why the majority of dogs used by police, military and other service organizations are imported from Europe? Because the culture of dog training in Europe includes an understanding of patience and repetition. There are probably very few ‘Dog Whisperers’ over there, mostly ‘Dog Handlers’ (yea, I know it’s a generalized statement, but you get the point).

Decide what you want to train the dog to do, then begin the exercises. Watch the progress and adjust the exercise accordingly. Keep doing it, daily, weekly as many times as you have to, in order to obtain the result. Maybe a thousand repetitions are needed, maybe more. Also, don’t expect things to look great when you first start a specific obedience exercise. It will be sloppy, awkward and uncomfortable. The dog may react or protest. The worst thing you could do at that point is to stop because ‘my dog doesn’t like what we’re doing’. The solution to that is to continue the procedure until it smooths out and the dog has gotten the point and understands what you mean.

Be willing, be patient and get results on your dog!

This post is for three  categories of Rottweiler owners:

1. Those who are new to the breed and who do not know what is the correct size for a Rottweiler.

2. Those who own or ‘breed’  Rottweilers who consider this dog to be a giant breed and who try to convince others of their altered, skewed understanding of the breed standard.

3. Those who own Rottweilers who feel their dog is ‘too small’ because they’ve been told so by others.

Here is the following, from the current, written Rottweiler Breed Standard, taken directly from the AKC web site:

The ideal Rottweiler is a medium large, robust and powerful dog, black with clearly defined rust markings…Dogs–24 inches to 27 inches. Bitches–22 inches to 25 inches, with preferred size being mid-range of each sex. Correct proportion is of primary importance, as long as size is within the standard’s range.

Please note that the Rottweiler is a ‘medium large’ dog. It is not a large or giant breed.  There is no mention of weight, no mention that the dog must weigh over a hundred pounds, or any specific weight for that matter. Note the heights for males and females (at the shoulders).  Those are the correct height ranges for Rottweilers. Take a tape measure and measure your dog’s height. If a dog is inside that height limit, it is considered  correct.  What else is there to understand?

Look, this is not rocket science. You can look up this info the same way that I did. If you own a pure bred dog, you might want to study the breed standard for that dog, just so you know what you have in front of you. Just a suggestion.

Anyone out there who is being told by others that their Rottweiler is ‘too small’, when their dog fits within the breed standard should understand that this is coming from an idiot. They should simply ignore these comments.  Anyone being told that their Rottweiler pup is ‘too small’ when it hasn’t finished developing should ignore this as well.  I personally have never taken kindly to complete strangers making comments to me about things they know nothing about, regardless of the subject.

Those of you out there who want a giant dog, then get a Mastiff or a Dane or some such….and please stop spreading false information about the Rottweiler breed. Thank you.

Here is some information that I feel is vital to the correct development of your working dog. It is often missed, ignored and otherwise relegated to the zone of  ‘that stuff is for other people’s dogs’, which is inaccurate to say the least.

So, when should the red light go off regarding formal obedience training?  When your dog is old enough to know the value of reward and motivation for executing a command, has developed some focus and when it is beginning to test the boundaries of its relationship with the owner. This comes into play around six to eight months old, can happen earlier or later, but it will happen.

Here we have the dog, who, when asked to sit (off leash), will sit some of the time; who will engage in destructive chewing or barking; who will challenge the handler or people in the environment; doesn’t come when called. The list goes on.

Here is the rule: A dog will not learn actual compliance to a command while off the leash/correction collar. True compliance to a given command will only be effective once the dog realizes it cannot disobey the command, ever.

The solution is to either enroll in a puppy obedience class or teach yourself how to train your dog. That means every day, for its lesson, it is on a leash, with a correction collar (usually a prong). That doesn’t mean endlessly telling the dog ‘No’, louder and louder in a vain attempt to control the animal with your voice. This is a useless exercise. There has to be a an actual physical correction in conjunction with the command (Sit, Stay, Come, etc) for the command to have an impact on the dog.  This doesn’t mean, of course, that you should over-correct or be a sadist with your animal.  This is not punishment. It is training. If you cannot differentiate between the two, get a lizard for a pet.

A few minutes a day, with a day or two off per week,  should start conditioning a dog towards good obedience.

As a note on this, there are some people who feel it is cruel to correct a dog with a collar. They feel, instead, that you can use reason and human communication alone to get a dog to obey. There are all sorts of silly dog training ‘techniques’ out there that purport to solve the ‘problem’ of training a dog in obedience by not training the dog in obedience. Good luck with that, especially with a working breed.

If you think this doesn’t apply to your dog, or that your dog is a natural Rin-Tin-Tin, then by all means disregard the above rule. However, I am willing to wager you that at some point your dog will choose to disobey your command and that will be the end of that experiment. A dog will get away with as much as it can get away with, in the obedience department. It is a fact that obedience is not native to a dog’s behavior, so one probably should also conclude that the human handler must  create an environment where obedience is part of the dog’s life.

If you wait for the dog to make decisions on its behavior, you are asking for trouble.

Good luck and Good obedience training.

Things change. Sometimes for the better and other times, for the worse. The problem with changes over long periods of time is that they tend to go unnoticed. Rottweiler breeding programs are a very good example of a gradual change for the worse: a relatively new trend here in the USA.

To fill you in historically, a breeding program was essentially taking two exceptional specimens (dog and bitch) and having them reproduce exceptional specimens to begin the work of genetically upgrading or maintaining a high standard within that breed. It used to be that the breeder would keep a female or two from his own breedings, then find an exceptional male from another kennel (with genetic ties to the female) and breed that male to his female, thus creating a  third generation from which to further carry on the program. It was understood that to do this, you had to start with good foundation stock, keep good female offspring and breed that offspring to good males. This would be continued for years, hopefully proving out the original foundation pair and thus,the breeding program itself. This way, when someone wanted to buy a pup, they would know that they were getting an animal with a proven pedigree and some existing evidence that there were no health issues and so on.

This was also where various ‘lines’ of Rottweilers would originate, sort of like good wines from a well known winery or well bred horses from a specific stable. It used to be that you could look at a Rottweiler and almost tell what breeding program the dog came from. Those days are pretty much gone.

Fast forward to today. Here is the new scenario, all too often played out in Rottweiler kennels: Someone has a lot of money to burn, buys two stud dogs and a few females from Europe to begin a kennel. This is the slam dunk mentality and although it takes little time to get up and running, it is worthless as a breeding program. Why? Because the breeder is not proving out his stock. He is breeding Dog ‘A’ to Bitch ‘B’ and selling the pups, based solely on the merits of the parents. That’s it. All guarantees and glowing descriptions (you know the drill – “the greatest dog in the world”, etc) aside, what is being accomplished? None of the dogs in this scenario are proven within the framework of a breeding program, which can take five to ten years to develop (longer if the foundation pair have failed to produce good offspring). You see, just because the parents have fantastic pedigrees, or just because they are good looking dogs, doesn’t necessarily result in correct offspring. It will definitely help, but, again, the breeding program must be done to prove out the foundation stock. Period.  If anyone tells you otherwise, they are lying. Period.

You also see a similarity in hobby kennels where someone is breeding two dogs regardless of quality, pedigree, phenotype, etc. They advertise them as ‘AKC’ or some such to apparently impress buyers, when in fact, all Rottweilers can be AKC registered – it has absolutely no bearing on the quality of  any one dog. These individuals have even less of an idea of what they are doing than my first example and when they find out that there is very little money to be made, end their hobby, usually within five years.

What do both of these types of people have in common? Money Motivation. These individuals, in my opinion, are not doing the work necessary and taking the time needed to create a viable line of Rottweilers. In order to justify their money motivation, some of these people will eventually resort to lying, misrepresenting their breeding stock and other methods to make a sale. It always catches up with them, either through bad word of mouth, lawsuits, banishment from the AKC, etc. I have seen and heard it all.

The above descriptions were more the exception rather than the rule when I first became interested in Rottweilers, over fifteen years ago. In my opinion, the first purpose of a breeding kennel is to dedicate itself to the betterment of the breed. Money is the reward the breeder receives for doing the hard work of creating healthy, well bred pups for others to enjoy as fine examples of the Rottweiler breed. When a kennel devolves into some kind of cash cow then I think it’s time to re-evaluate Rottweiler breeding, particularly here in the United States.

Please understand again that the lazy use of the subject of genetics, as practiced in the above examples, is not scientific at all and without actually studying the results over time, is at best unreliable. To compound the problem by claiming their pups are as good as the parents with no proof in the form of a breeding program, makes the fantastic claims of those involved even more ludicrous.

While any major change in this situation will most likely not happen any time soon, I thought posting this would at least raise some awareness on the subject.

Bob

While more often than not I am commenting to dog owners that their pet is obese, there is a definite need for any information on getting weight up on a dog.

A hard keeper is exactly that: a dog that does not hold weight easily due to stress or hard work or high drive or whatever.  I have already discussed the choices to be made regarding the right dog food and the dangers of feeding a dog such as this a low calorie food. Now I am going to explain in more detail how to get the job done of putting weight back onto your working dog.

The first thing to do is examine your dog food’s ME, or metabolizable energy. If your food has less than 3900 kcal/kg, change foods to a high energy food, with at least 3900-4500 kcal/kg and around 450-550 kcal/cup.  If you need to call the manufacturer for this information, then do so. They are required to disclose the kcal data to the consumer.

Now that you hopefully have a decent quality high calorie food, you need to determine how much to feed the dog daily. Please do yourself a favor and use a measuring cup. Here is the rule: you increase the daily food intake slowly until your dog starts to get loose stools. Loose stools is a sign that you are overfeeding the dog. Then, you cut back until you get a firm stool. I know, this sounds goofy, but it’s the only way to know if you are feeding enough. There is no reliable weight-to-food gauge that I know of. I have seen eighty pound dogs absorb four cups and some that cannot. It is a matter of the individual dog’s metabolism.

If the dog lives primarily outside, this may take up to eight or ten weeks for you to see significant increase in the dog’s body weight. In extreme cases where the dog is simply moving around too much for the food to convert into fat and muscle tissue, you may need to crate the dog during this time period. I have seen dogs who cannot gain weight while in the kennel environment, who, when crated in the house for around a month or two, have gained close to five pounds, which is significant for a dog.

Remember, every dog is different, with different metabolisms and nutritional needs. Work with their diet and you will get them to an ideal weight.

Bob

In working with dogs, puppies and handlers over the years, I have found a common issue in training.  This has to do with one’s lack of observation of what the animal is doing.

A dog is always doing something, both in life and in training situations. This is true before a command, during the command, after the command, during the reward or release and so on. If you are ignoring what the dog is doing, you will make the gigantic error of assuming what the dog is thinking, which is quite a leap for a human to make, even with other humans, much less with dogs.

If you do not watch your dog you may be missing one key habit or movement that he or she is doing that will tell you what to correct or condition your dog to do, or not do.  Too many handlers just go through the motions and expect those motions to pay off with the dog. These handlers are not having fun because THEY ARE NOT BEING INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS OF DOG TRAINING.  Instead, they are just casual spectators, waiting for the dog to do the  right thing.  This laziness is why the ‘method’ dog trainers make so much money and deliver such a poor result – they know you don’t want to watch your dog, so they develop bogus ‘methods’ to make you into a robotic dog ‘trainer’.

You should try this for a few minutes every day: sit or stand near your dog and just watch. See what it is doing, how it relates to its environment, how it relates to people, whatever you want to know about your dog.

I guess it’s ironic that we demand that our dog watch us when we don’t do the same with them.

Bob

I have emphasized the importance of socialization and obedience training more than once, both on this blog and in conversation with owners, but the subjects are so vital that both bear continuous repetition.  I think that life has a way of distracting us and pulling us off of vital actions that need to be done in everything we do, including our pets. So, a little reminder now and then is a good thing.

With that being said, I wanted to post two personal anecdotes that show what can happen with working dogs when an owner/handler does not do the right thing re: obedience/socialization.

The first incident occurred at my vet’s office, around a month ago. I had taken in one of my females for a check up. While waiting in the room for my vet, I heard barking out in the waiting area and someone yelling ‘Knock it off!” to one of the dogs. I walked out into the hallway and saw a man and woman, each with a German Shepherd dog, on leash. I knew the man, knew he was involved in Schutzhund training with his dogs and  that he was more concerned with how nasty his dogs were during Schutzhund training than how well he could control them. This is perhaps a variation on the ‘size fetish’ and an accurate index of the character of this guy. Now, telling a dog to ‘knock it off’ is not very effective, especially if not accompanied by a collar correction. It is just someone who wants to draw attention to the fact that he has a ‘badass’ dog, nothing more. I wasn’t able to see what happened as far as correcting their dogs went, but the fact that these animals were acting sharp like this in a vet’s office is a huge red flag. Well, I finished my appointment and heeled my dog out of the room into the hallway and out to the reception area, where one of these Shepherds sat, with the female handler. I walked my dog in front of them (not towards, but across = prey, not defense) and the Shepherd lunged at both myself and my dog, growling and barking aggressively. The handler did nothing to correct the dog, except passively allowing the dog to correct itself when it reached the end of the lead and going into a sit. Who the hell trained this person as a handler? Not a very good trainer. That spoke volumes as to who trained the dog, as well.  Again, the dog had no manners, was sharp and went after another dog and handler, WHO WERE NOT THREATENING THE DOG OR HIS OWNER.  This, in the Schutzhund sport, is something that should have been addressed in basic obedience. It’s called a temperament test, and if something like this happens, the dog is disqualified from that trial. More simply put, it is the basic criteria for a pass on the Canine Good Citizen test, open to all breeds regardless of training level. Yet, these two people think it’s somehow appropriate for their dogs to act this way. No, no, no. I don’t care if you own a fully trained patrol dog. If you have that dog in a sit, he stays in a sit and does not do anything but sit. This is behavior ALLOWED BY THE HANDLER AND REINFORCED WITH BAD TRAINING AND POOR OR NO SOCIALIZATION. Needless to say, I reported both of them to my vet and told the woman that she should learn how to correct her dog. She had nothing to say, and rightly so.

Here is the second example, again. a true story. the other day, I was out in a small downtown area near home, socializing one of my young females. This included heeling in the little park and then heeling up and down the sidewalks, passing people and other dogs, allowing people to pet her and so on. The usual stuff. At one point in her heeling, I approached what appeared to be a man with his service dog. It was probably a seeing eye dog -  the animal wore a nylon harness with the emblem of some service dog organization, so it was either seeing eye or  therapy, etc. As you probably know, these dogs are highly trained to go into stores, airports, etc. to assist their owners in getting around. So, I am heeling my female in front of this man and his dog (again a GSD – I have no problem with Sheps, by the way. I own two myself. I do have a problem with untrained Sheps). Again, not towards, but across, in a non threatening way. The dog lunges for me and my female, growling and barking.  Fortunately, this was a small dog and the man was able to pull it back and grabbing it’s entire body close to his, told it ‘no’. With all due respect to disabled people, hugging a dog while telling it ‘no’ is the most useless form of correction possible. What did he correct in this dog? Nothing. More importantly, this is a SERVICE DOG. They are not supposed to have head issues. How does this guy expect to walk into a crowd of people or an airport with a dog like this?  The real fault actually lies with the person who allegedly trained this dog. I’ve seen man eating patrol dogs act more responsibly. I wanted to talk to the man and help him report this to the organization that sold him the animal, but, I had no choice but to heel my dog away, across the street, rather than risk another confrontation with a sharp dog and a disabled handler.

Both of these incidents show the shameful lack of understanding that certain people have with regards to working dogs and their relationships with people, other dogs and the environment in general. The incidents above are the result of LEARNED BEHAVIOR on the part of each dog, allowed or encouraged by the trainer, handler and owner. It has nothing to do with the breed type, sex of the dog or anything else. Maybe, just maybe, that Shepherd shouldn’t have been selected to do service work, but responsibility still falls to the trainer of the dog to select the right dog for the job. You don’t use a nervy dog for work like that, ever.

Again, this is why everyone who owns a working lines dog, or any dog for that matter, to properly socialize and obedience train their animals so that they are well behaved and trustworthy out in the world.

This doesn’t mean that your dog can’t protect you. But, that entails lots of training, which always starts with socialization and obedience!

Bob

I was just sent this YouTube  video montage from a proud, responsible Fallhammer Rottweiler Owner, who, having seen it, wanted to share it with me and others on the Kennel Facebook page.

It really communicates what the Rottweiler breed is all about and is an honest and heartfelt presentation.

Take a look at it and enjoy. Note: if you don’t get at least a little choked up while watching, then something’s wrong…

The True Character Of The Rottweiler

Bob