Bob's Dog Blog

This post is for those of you who are actually concerned that your Rottweiler must weigh 140-180 pounds, so it can protect you and your personal property. I have stated in earlier posts that the Rottweiler is a medium to large breed and that there are size restrictions written into the breed standard and that these demands regarding size are unrealistic and unnecessary.

That doesn’t stop people calling me to ask ridiculous questions about the weight of parents, eventual weight of the pup along with the ‘fact’ that their last Rottweiler weighed 180 pounds, and so on. (As a side note, people generally are unable to guess the weights of things. I have a male who most people insist weighs 130 pounds who is actually around 98 pounds.)

If you want a Rottie to protect you, then get a Rottie who has good nerves, loads of drive and then train him or her slowly and correctly to do the work.   Size matters not at all.

To illustrate this, I have a link here of a video from France’s RAID anti-terrorist K-9 unit, showing their Belgian Malinois dogs doing various containment and take down drills.

These dogs weigh around fifty to sixty pounds each, tops. Enjoy the video and support the Rottweiler breed standard!

After over a dozen years of doing this dog thing, I have heard just about every question that could possibly be asked by a prospective owner. Most of them are common sense questions, or relate to a real concern the person has regarding health, temperament, intelligence and training.

Then again, I have had to occasionally deal with the myths and misunderstandings about the Rottweiler breed. Here are the best examples of actual questions I have been asked, either over the phone or via email:

1. How big are the parents?

If one more person asks me that question, I believe my head will implode. I have addressed this more than once on this blog and I recently realized that it doesn’t matter because the type of person that asks this question doesn’t do anything to study the breed standard or much else regarding Rottweilers. Do they really think that I have a livestock scale on my property, and that, every day or week, I weigh all of my dogs? If I answer, ‘Their size is correct’, they are baffled. If I say, ‘Do you want a giant dog, or a Rottweiler?’, they become offended. The answer, really, is ‘I don’t care, and neither should you. Their size is correct and within the breed standard.’

2. How big are their heads?

Again, here we go with a question that would require a caliper and loads of extra time on my hands. If I say anything other than ‘They are gigantic, sort of like a Saint Bernard, or a Bull Mastiff.’, I get disappointment from them. Here is my answer: ‘Their heads are still growing, so how the hell should I know what their final size will be at adulthood? And, more importantly, why aren’t you asking questions about their health or temperaments?’

3. Will they guard my property??

Yes, This, usually coming from geniuses who think dogs are just born as Rin Tin Tin. Well, if you expect an eight week old pup to guard your property without loads of training and socialization, then you are an idiot and I will not sell you a dog. Answer: ‘Their nerves are very good, but you must train and socialize the dog over a period of at least a year in order to produce an animal that will effectively guard. If you want a junkyard dog, go to the pound and get one from them.’

4. Are they German?

Okay, enough with this ‘German/American’ stuff. ALL ROTTWEILERS ARE FROM GERMANY. There is no such breed as an ‘American Rottweiler’. What there is, is there are dogs that are bred in the USA and pups that are born in the USA and these are called ‘American Bred’, as opposed to ‘European Bred’, ‘German Bred’, etc. That’s it. They shouldn’t look different, in spite of what some ‘expert’ has told you. The rule is, if the dog looks goofy, then it was a poorly bred dog. The fact that some yahoo in the USA was the breeder doesn’t make it an ‘American Rottweiler’. It simply makes it a poorly bred dog. You see, Americans have a bad habit of ruining almost every breed that has been imported here and the Rottweiler is no exception.

5. Where do your dogs come from?

I was asked this question the other day and I wanted to start hitting my head against the wall. The person asking had no idea about Rottweiler pedigrees and so was asking me a question that would have made absolutely no difference to the person asking. My dogs come from European show and working pedigrees. If you want to know more, you can ask, but if you don’t know the difference between Benno von der Schwarzenheide and your friend’s dog ‘Harley von Davidson’, then you are wasting my time and yours with the question, aren’t you?

6. Are they good with children? (asked regarding eight week old pups)

At eight weeks old, I can only guess that they are good with children. This is like asking me if a child will grow up to be President.

7. Are they housebroken? (asked regarding eight week old pups)

At eight weeks old, they are not going to be housebroken, even for five thousand bucks per pup.

8. How big will they get?

This is a variation of ‘How big are the parents?’. Usually, the person asking has a size fetish and you know what I’m talking about. There is no way to determine the final, adult size of a dog. Don’t even bother asking, as if this is your major concern, you need to move on.

9. Are they good with other dogs (asked regarding eight week old pups)

They are getting along fine with their litter mates and that is the best answer I can give you on this. They are eight week old pups. They are blank slates and will need to be socialized by their new owner. You are not buying a toaster oven – you are buying a pup that actually needs to be taken care of, trained, socialized, and so on.

10. Will they have big, blocky heads and short muzzles?

I don’t even know where this ridiculous question originally came from. Nothing in the written breed standard calls for either of these traits. I just keep telling people who ask this, to look up the breed standard on the AKC’s web site. Here is the link, for those who want to know:

The AKC Rottweiler Breed Standard

I hope this helps!

Best,
Bob

I just wanted to add a bit to yesterday’s post, ‘Learn About The Rottweiler Breed Standard’ after realizing that there probably needed to be a bit more context in order to fully clarify what I wrote.

1. To start off, in fact, there is no such thing as a dog that conforms 100% with this breed description. Anyone, breeder and owner included, who tells you that their dog or dogs are perfect is not being honest. Not with themselves, to begin with and certainly not with anyone else. All breeders should be working towards this standard and obviously, the closer we get, the better. All dogs have flaws and the ones with the fewest flaws are considered for breeding programs and the show ring. It’s not more complicated than that.

2. However, if your own dog doesn’t fully comply with this standard, that is of lesser importance compared to the qualities that are truly vital to a pet owner: temperament, health, intelligence, playfulness and all the other qualities that you love about your Rottweiler. I have seen Rottweilers that can work the pants off of most dogs, who are not necessarily dogs for the show ring. Some variations in appearance are natural, considering all of the genetic combinations available within this breed. When I evaluate a pup, for example, I certainly take into account the pup’s conformation. That is only one category out of several, including temperament, the various drives, nerves, focus, activity level, among others. The best pups, in my opinion, are those that are conformationally correct where it counts that additionally possess great health, spirit and working ability.

2. That being said, my intention in writing yesterday’s post was to somehow neutralize the people who falsely think they know best about the Rottweiler breed who, in fact, are trying to influence others in their misinformation. These are the folks who want others to believe that a medium to large breed such as the Rottweiler should be the size of a mastiff. That the head must look this way or that, without even understanding correct type to begin with. The list goes on. These people are not only obsessed with their ridiculously false ideas concerning how a Rottweiler MUST LOOK AND WEIGH more than the overall picture of what the dog truly should look like and most importantly, what each dog brings to the table for dog ownership/companionship. None of these so-called experts have ever actually read either of the written breed standards, much less understood them.

So, to anyone who reads this, when looking for and purchasing a Rottweiler pup (or any other purebred dog) as a companion animal remember to view the whole picture and not just a few body parts.

Best,
Bob

I get asked this question quite often. There are a few variations but it usually boils down to this – why do you own and breed Rottweilers? Why not another breed of dog? And so on.

So, here are the answers, in case you are wondering, or even if you’re not. Yes, there are answers, because I cannot come up with just one blanket answer for this.

1. They are intelligent, more so than many other breeds of dog. A canine intelligence survey was taken by the US military years ago, probably to find out which breeds of dog best suited different types of military work. The IQ testing revealed that the Rottweiler was in the top three of working breeds tested. This is called native intelligence and has nothing to do with speed of training, but in ability to process information and think with things going on in the environment. The top dog tested was the Siberian Husky and they are a real handful in training, as some people might know. This is because they were bred to be by themselves and to think for themselves. So too, to a degree, was the Rottweiler. As a livestock dog, he was bred to take care of things without a lot of intervention from the handler. So, now, in the present day, you can have Rottweilers who are extremely intelligent, independent and capable of caring for humans, livestock or property. This is why owners love their Rotties – the dogs really care about their owners.

2. This is a good looking animal. At least when it is well bred. To me, there is nothing quite so beautiful as a pretty dog or bitch, stacked, poised to hear or see something of great interest. This is what I live for as a breeder, because the Rottweiler is a dog that requires balance and proportion to look correct and when it all comes together, you have the strength, passion and alertness that only a Rottweiler, in my opinion, can possess.

3. They are very trainable. As opposed to the Husky mentioned earlier, the Rottweiler is able to be trained in a multitude of exercises and tasks. They are still used around the world for herding, perimeter guard work, personal protection, search and rescue, therapy work, explosive and drug detection and a host of other activities. This is quite beyond the fact that they make one of the best all-around house dogs, excelling at both home protection and companionship for the family. I cannot tell you how many owners have emailed or called to tell me what they have trained their Rottie to do: from teaching them to ring a bell to be let out, off leash healing, following all kinds of voice and hand signals, housebreaking in less than a week, and so on.

4. They are reliable. This is again, a product of a good breeding program. What I mean by reliable is basically, that they are able to be relied upon once they are trained or socialized in a specific skill or environmental situation to maintain that skill or behavior. I have found that they do not back slide or fail to perform once they are settled in or trained in. This holds true for everything from housebreaking to social skills and obedience.

So, are they the perfect dog? There is no such thing as a perfect dog, regardless of breed type. I would say however, that, given the owner’s circumstances and environmental set up, a Rottweiler could be one of the more exceptional family and homestead animals on the planet. Well, at least according to myself and every other Rottweiler owner I have ever talked to!

Best,

Bob

This post is about a very real, common situation in the puppy-buying world: You Get What You Pay For. Let me clarify by example.

A young woman purchased a dog from someone who claimed to be a breeder. She paid 300 dollars for the dog. At eight months he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to be put to sleep. She purchased another $300 dog who had to be euthanized for extreme temperament issues at a year old. Shall I go on? Okay, another person I know purchased a ‘cheap’ pup who developed hip dysplasia at six months. Um, another one had to put down their dog at three years old due to hip dysplasia and cancer.

Wow. What a deal they got on that puppy. Let’s work out the math, shall we?

Initial cost of pup = $300 – 500

Vet Bills for handling of congenital and other issues due to ‘breeder’s’ complete lack of understanding of the breed standard, genetics, pedigrees or anything else having to do with creating any semblance of a breeding program = $1500 – $4000

So, the next time you see an actual, ethical breeder advertising a pup for more than a few hundred bucks and you think to yourself, ‘Hell, I paid a hundred and fifty for my pup back in 1975, this guy is asking way too much money for a pup’ and you don’t stop yourself and realize that you are being ridiculous, and you go ahead and purchase a pup (covered in it’s own feces, with worms, no health cert from a person who should not be procreating within his own species, much less adding to the dog population), just remember one thing: I TOLD YOU SO.

Best,

Bob

Well, this subject has come up enough recently for me to start getting paranoid on the subject of people choosing males vs. females. I guess I should explain what I mean.

Okay, for the longest time, owners were preferring males over females, maybe on a two to one ratio. The males always went first and the females hung around an extra week or two. Not a really big deal, as they always went to great homes and the people who really wanted a female got what they wanted. I kind of accepted it as the ratio.

Now, in the past few months, I have seen a near reversal of that trend. Now, maybe it’s just coincidence, but maybe there’s something to this. But three out of four calls or inquiries are about females.

Look, don’t get me wrong, I love female Rottweilers. I don’t think there’s a darn thing wrong with owning a female and as a matter of fact (and quite obvious), that is almost exclusively what I have owned as a breeder and dog handler.

But, that doesn’t mean that males suck, either.

Here’s an excerpt from an email I received from a potential owner a month or so ago:

“I had another breeder advise me that I should get a female rather than a male because of temperament issues. I have a 5 yr old and a 2 yr old and they seemed to think that a female would be better. I grew up with a male and that is what I had in mind. What do you think?”

Here was my answer:

First off, (and I may sound too harsh here, but here we go anyway………) I think that the ‘breeder’ who told you that a male is more prone to temperament issues is actually full of crap and does not remotely understand the Rottweiler breed and dogs in general. Try to avoid both them and their puppies if possible. I guess if you have a breeding program that produces skittish dogs with thin nerves or horrible temperaments to begin with, there might be a concern with males coming out of that kennel. The truth is, all things being equal, dogs of either gender are as reliable as they are properly socialized early in life and given proper obedience training.

Although genetics does play a part in the offspring (and a skittish or unusually aggressive dog of any breed is not a reliable choice, especially for a family with children) the gender of the dog is not the main issue here. It is the individual dog’s temperament, including his nerves. Dogs are individuals, just like people and an outgoing, well bred pup, with solid nerves at eight weeks of age is a blank slate that simply needs to be imprinted (socialized, and trained) by its new owner. If you keep the dog in a closet he will grow up to be an idiot and not be very good socially. Male or female doesn’t really matter. I have sold a good number of males to families with children of all ages, including newborns, and have heard not one word from any one of them regarding any issue stemming from some supposed temperament flaw with their male pup. Now, you said you grew up with a male in your household. Did you have any problems with his temperament? Case closed.

So, I thought this was an isolated situation and didn’t think much else about it until the other day, when another prospective owner called me and said the EXACT SAME THING, almost word for word. Now, again, I am not one to push the conspiracy thing, but I think that the same idiot who has been telling people that there is such a thing as an ‘American’ and a ‘German’ Rottweiler is also telling people that male Rottweilers make bad pets.

I think that you should choose a male or female based on your own preference, what you are comfortable with and what best suits your living arrangements. The particular sex of the dog is not something that a breeder should be spending a lot of time influencing you about. The only thing I would say is, if you aren’t planning on doing obedience training or socializing your dog, then you shouldn’t be getting a Rottweiler at all, male or female! Try a goldfish.

Okay, so what am I getting at? Here is my true or false list. Decide for yourself.

1. Males are more aggressive than females -

This is not really true. I guess these faux breeders have never seen two females get aggressive and start fighting with each other when one is in heat, or something like that. Not a pretty sight. Again, it is more the individual dog’s mental makeup, his nerves and his personality. Aggression has nothing to do with testosterone. It has to do with learned behavior and the situation the dog is involved in. The bottom line on aggression is that the dog has to be taught what is appropriate and what is inappropriate behavior from a young age. If you are not willing to do this, then don’t get a dog.

2. Females bond to their owners better than males do -

I would have to say false to this one as well. What data does anyone have that proves this? Nobody has any data, period. I have sold males to single men with no families and they bond well. I have sold males to families and they bond with everyone right away. Males are just as protective and territorial as females when it comes to the household. The only thing I can think of that comes close to this is that I have seen females sometimes bond better with male humans and male Rotties bond with female humans, but this is not something that I have statistics on and can say, ‘Yes, of course, females make better family pets and companions because blah blah blah.’. Nope I cannot.

3. If you have small children, only get a female -

False. Again, do you think the female is going to baby sit your kids while the male Rottweiler is going to go out drinking with his pals? Nope. Refer to my answer to the nice lady’s email.

4. If you are a dishonest breeder and are having trouble selling your females, tell buyers that females are better than males -

Sure, I think this one is true. Self explanatory.

5. Males mark their territory in the house -

Yes, this is sometimes true but is not always the case. This mostly occurs when you have other males in the house or when you allow other males to visit. Jake, my son’s Rottweiler, doesn’t pee in the house at all and he is intact and five years old. Of course, he is the only male in the house (except for my son!!)

6. Males will take longer to train than females-

False. If the dog is not too bright, then I would say that would be the reason for longer than normal training times. Or, if the handler is not real bright, that could account for the same issue.

That should do it.

Bob

I have been operating a breeding kennel for over ten years, so I have had my share of questions from curious,concerned and otherwise data starved potential owners. Sometimes, I receive a canned list of questions that I know came from some book or article on ‘How To Not Get Ripped Off By A Disreputable Breeder’ published in Dog Fancy or some other similar mag or web site. Queries include

How long have you been breeding Rottweilers?

Are your dogs OFA certified?

How many dogs do you have in your kennel?

Where do your dogs live?

How many litters do you have a year?

Okay, so all of the above questions are legitimate and can give a prospective buyer some kind of profile of the breeder and his ethics. However, I can answer all of those questions with the appropriate answer and still not have the knowledge or understanding of the breed and how to create and maintain a kennel and a breeding program that is going to produce healthy, active pups.

Let’s say I only have two females and a male and they are my pets and I only breed once every two years. My dogs are OFA certified and they live in the house. Okay, so what that means is that this breeder has some nice pets that are bred occasionally. Does this mean that the breeding stock is correct and that the pedigrees are worth the price of the pups? Does this person know what a Rottweiler is supposed to look like? And so on. But the test has been passed and the prospective buyer knows that this breeder is not running a puppy mill. Wow. Big deal. Apparently, if you own more than three dogs you are running a puppy mill.

Okay, so I have some real questions that you can ask one of these breeder-type people. These are questions that, when asked, will either evoke a lot of stuttering and stammering and non-answers or real information as to the knowledge and skill of the breeder. Fasten your seatbelts, cuz you’re in for one hell of a ride!!

1. What is the top side pedigree of this pup? (top side is the father, bottom side is the mother. If you look at a printed pedigree, you will see this very clearly- the top half of the paper is the father’s lineage, the bottom half of the paper is the mother’s.) If the breeder doesn’t start answering you within five seconds, you can be sure they have no clue as to what you are talking about.

2. Ask the breeder to describe or explain the type for each parent. Type here refers to phenotype, or physical type of the dog. Some Rotties have a very correct type, some are a bit extreme in the head, some are compact, etc. Failure to even know what type means is a sign of ignorance of dog breeding in general.
3. Ask for any titled dogs in the last three generations of both parents. If they are reading from the pedigree and give you a title, like ‘Blah Blah, CGC’, ask them what ‘CGC’ means. (CGC means Canine Good Citizen and it isn’t a title. It’s a temperament test. Not a bad thing, but not a title) If the breeder can’t explain to you what the titles mean and what the actual accomplishment was that the dog achieved, then the breeder is too lazy or uncaring to even research his or her own dog’s ancestry.

4. Ask the breeder to tell you about the conformation of the parents. If the breeder doesn’t know what the word ‘conformation’ means, then you are done right there. Conformation describes the physical characteristics of the dog as compared to the written breed standard of that particular breed. If the dog ‘conforms’ to the breed standard, then the animal is correct for the breed. I would just ask this question to see if the breeder knows what the word means! I am a cruel bastard.

5. Ask the breeder to explain in detail what hip dysplasia is. Make sure that you have already looked this up online and know yourself exactly what this condition is. If all you get is ‘It’s a disease of the hips’ then you are pretty much done there.

Okay, I’m sure that I can come up with more subtle ways of entrapping would-be breeders into exposing their ignorance of the breed that they have allegedly pledged to improve through their breeding program, but I will stop there. I will, however, give you a list of things to look out for and avoid at all costs in looking for a pup:

1. Any pedigree that includes a dog with the name ‘Harley’, ‘Harley Davidson’ or ‘Samson’.

2. In looking at a breeding pedigree, you see that the sire and dam have the same parents.

3. The breeder who proudly tells you that his sire is a ‘long hair’ Rottweiler.

4. The breeder who proudly tells you that one or both of the parents are well over 160 pounds.

5. The breeder whose primary selling point is the size of the father’s head.

6. The breeder whose primary selling point is the fact that the pups were born without tails.

7. The breeder who mispronounces the name of the breed. Rockwiler, Rockwilder, Rock, etc.

Okay, that about does it. Hope you have some fun with it and learn something about Rottweilers in the process.

Bob

I split this article in half because there’s a lot for me to say here and I wanted it to be a bit more readable……..

2. So, what about phenotype?

Again, when you’re looking for a pup, you want the best possible combination of genetics (genotype or pedigree) and phenotype PLUS individual temperament,drive, intelligence,etc.
Here is what phenotype is: physical appearance and/or actual type or physical characteristics of the specific dog in front of you.

You may want a certain type when looking for a Rottweiler, such as a darker mahogany and a certain look for the head piece. Well, the parents may possess some of those types you like, but you should probably look at the pup itself to see if it also has that type. Some offspring do not look exactly like their parents, so getting a picture would probably help. Phenotype is the easiest to examine in a pup, because it’s right there in front of you!

Phenotype basically confirms what the genetics are telling you. It is the reliability of phenotype that gives you correct looking pups when breeding a male and female of similar type and it is what we as breeders should strive for in attempting to copy the breed standard.

3. That leaves us with tested temperament, drive and intelligence. We can call this Ability.

The following fact is the most overlooked in pup selection regardless of pedigree or phenotype : THE UNSEEN ABILITIES OF THAT INDIVIDUAL PUP ARE OF EQUAL IMPORTANCE TO THE QUALITY OF THE PEDIGREE AND PHYSICAL APPEARANCE OF THE DOG.

If you want to train the dog in competitive obedience or protection or flyball or whatever, make sure the dog has the drive or interest in play to do the work. If not, you’ll get the pup home and it’ll look at you like you have three heads when you toss a ball for it to chase. Great pedigree. Looks great. Lousy drive. Oh, well, I guess the apple fell a few miles from the tree. I mean, for sure you would look for a working pedigree if you wanted a working dog, for instance. Still, it is no substitute for actually looking at the pup in front of you.

I’m not saying that if you pay three grand for a pup out of some awesome sire that you won’t get a great pup – all I am saying is that the fact that the sire is fantastic is not a guarantee that the offspring will be.

4. Here’s the moral of the story.

Study the pedigree. Are dogs on the pedigree proven producers in both work and conformation? Or are they all “Harley Von Davidson” (my own personal favorite) with a dog that won a Canine Good Citizen seven generations ago. (I recently saw a web site where they stated they were proud members of Avid and the OFA. I had no idea that when you micro-chipped your dog and sent in an xray that you became a member of such special clubs!)

Have the pup tested by the breeder. Take a look at the pictures of the pup. Are the nerves sound? Does the pup have any major faults or flaws that would be a health or performance issue? Really check it out. And I don’t mean just check to see of the parents were done on their OFA hip screening. Just so you know, that is actually only one body part out of a whole bunch. Have the drive tested, if that matters to you. I can test drive and nerves on a pup at seven weeks with pretty good accuracy.

Of course, if the pup is not thereafter socialized and trained to CONTINUE to be environmentally sound, then the three factors (genotype, phenotype, ability) will be wasted. And that is where you come in as the owner. If you want the pup to have ball drive, don’t expect him to get tons of ball drive if you don’t exercise that drive and bring it out of him when he’s a pup. I can’t tell you how many people come to me with their dog when he’s two years old and cannot understand when the dog doesn’t go crazy for the ball. Dog doesn’t know how to play and should have learned it when he was three months old.

It really boils down to ‘what am I looking for in a pup?’. If you want a certain look or working ability or just a pet that you can train to be a good member of the family, you need to at least discuss that with the breeder to see if he has a match for you. Again, just buying a pup on pedigree or looks alone is going to mostly be a status based decision. You know, like ‘my dog is better than your dog because of his pedigree or how big is head is.’ I didn’t think people thought that way, but I have spoken to some and I am amazed at what I hear. They actually believe that the dog IS his pedigree, which is false.

So, know that what the breeder is selling you is a blank slate. You as the owner need to socialize, train and responsibly care for the pup through its entire life. You are the one who can mold the dog into what you want as a family member and friend. And as I stated earlier, if you do the imprinting at an early enough age then the dog will be far easier to train when he’s a year or two old and you want to do something more with him. At that point, genetics might not be enough.

Bob

Okay, this is my first blog post and I have been saving this topic for just such an occasion. It has to do with the whole ‘are your dogs German or American’ question that is asked by amost every potential puppy owners when they call or email me. To be honest, it drives me up a wall every time I hear this question and I spend at least ten minutes clarifying, etc. Well, here it is in black and white.

First of all, let me begin by saying that ALL ROTTWEILERS CAME FROM GERMANY. That is where the breed was revived from it’s near extinction as an ancient breed and that is where ALL ROTTWEILERS, WHETHER THEY ARE LIVING IN GERMANY, THE USA, PAKISTAN, OR WHEREVER come from, genetically and physically. I saw an ad today from some individual selling pups, boasting that their dogs are of ‘German Descent’. Okay, so, big deal. Every Rottweiler on the planet is of German descent. These guys are trying to re-invent the wheel and hoping the public is gullible enough to buy it.

Now, back to this crap about whether my dogs are German or American. If someone were to bother looking up the breed standard for the Rottweiler on the AKC’s web site, they would not find any mention of two types of Rottweilers. These are not bulldogs (American and English breeds exist and they look different, for example) or other breed categories that have two or more types of the same or similar breed. You have rough and smooth coated dogs, you have other distinctions for all kinds of breeds, but NOT THE ROTTWEILER. There is only one overall breed description for a Rottweiler (the German breed description was used as the basis for the AKC breed standard) which means these dogs all have to look somewhat the same.

This means that if a dog was imported from Germany, or somewhere else in Europe, he should look pretty much like the dog that came from the US. And NO, the USA dogs are not bigger than the German dogs. I dare anyone to prove that point. I have seen some huge dogs that are from Yugoslavia and dogs with smaller frames that come from the US. I have seen some of the darkest dogs you have ever seen born in the US and I have seen dogs with light tan markings that were imported from Germany with outstanding pedigrees. The size, coat color, eye pigment, size, weight, etc have nothing to do with the country of origin. I mean, could someone tell what country YOU came from just by looking at you?

Okay, so here is where the title of this post comes in: I think this all started when somebody posing as a breeder wanted to make their dogs seem better or different or exotic by claiming they were ‘German’ as opposed to ‘American’ and this is where this urban legend probably began. The reality of this is that it is just another attempt at duping dog owners with false information. So the next time someone asks you if your Rottie is German or American, tell them the truth – that your dog is from Germany, just like every other Rottweiler on the planet. If that doesn’t satisfy them, send them to this web site and I’ll gladly clear up their confusion.

Thanks,

Bob