Bob's Dog Blog

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

Okay, here it is for those of you who are curious, confused or not sure as to how a live animal is priced for placement in a home.  This is my philosophy based on years of experience and may be quite in variance with those of other breeders who may feel that a pup who is nine weeks old should be given away.

THE PRICE OF A PURE BRED PUP IS BASED ON THE FOLLOWING FACTORS:

1. THE PUP’S HEALTH, NERVES AND TEMPERAMENT

2. THE PUP’S CONFORMATION, OR CORRECT TYPE

3. THE PUP’S PEDIGREE

4. THE PUP’S TRAINING

5. THE BREEDER’S INTEGRITY

There it is. If you have a pup with numbers 1-3 in great shape, then you get a pup in the mid to high level of price.  Remember, this is all relative to the quality of numbers 1-3. If the pedigree is poor or unknown, the price goes down. If the pup’s conformation is off, such as an overbite, the price goes down. If the pup has thin nerves, the price is dropped.

Now, let’s go on to number 4. Here is the truth. When you purchase a pup at eight weeks of age, that pup knows just about nothing. There is no way a pup who has just been weaned knows much or can do much. That is up to you. You do the socializing, obedience, crate training, etc. Those of you who have done this, know how much time is involved in this process. Now, if the breeder also trains the pup after eight weeks of age, then the value of the animal goes up, not down, relative to the amount of training, etc that is done. Now, just exactly why would the value drop if the breeder is raising the abilities of the pup? I don’t know either.

TRAINING AND IMPRINTING A YOUNG PUP IN THE BASICS OF OBEDIENCE, CRATING, NERVE NEUTRALIZATION AND OTHER SOCIALIZATION ACTIVITIES RAISES THE ABILITY, SKILL AND COMPATABLILITY OF THE PUP, THUS RAISING ITS VALUE TO A POTENTIAL OWNER.

Only a very dull person (i.e. an idiot) will not understand this.   A typical puppy obedience class costs between $250 and $400 with a competent trainer.  In home training is between $50 and $100 per hour.

Pups are not used VCRs. They are living, breathing, wonderful companions.  However, a value must be placed for the purpose of proper exchange with the breeder for his valuable experience, time, know how and actual training on the pup. By the way, a breeder who won’t or can’t train his own puppies is worthless as a breeder, much less as a dog owner.

Which brings me to Number 5.

Best,

Bob

If anyone has adopted a puppy from my kennel, they know that I always insist, and probably more than once, that the owner repeatedly socialize and obedience train their pups, even into adulthood. Aside from the obvious advantages a program such as this would have with a pet owner, it is a bit more involved than that.

In other words, socialization and training exist as the core, underlying element in the dog’s future relationships with humans, other animals and the environment in general. It’s important to understand that what the owner does is going to take the pup further than if he were just left alone, to figure things out for himself or worse yet, to learn from another dog in the household. I know, every prospective owner asks the breeder, ‘How is the temperament?’, when inquiring about a particular pup. Well, of course, a well bred dog needs to have a stable temperament, decent nerves and some basic socialization as of eight weeks old. This is vital, but that merely gives the new owner a blank slate from which to work with.

What now? Why does the owner  need to do something else with the pup, since it’s a pure bred dog with an AKC registration number and all of the correct markings? That is really asking too much, isn’t it? It’s all genetic, isn’t it? Not really. That’s like expecting an eight week old working dog to go out on patrol with a police officer with no training and actually assist in apprehending criminals, sniffing drugs, doing live bites, etc. Pretty ridiculous, huh?

Here is the rule: Socialization and Obedience Training enable the dog to become neutralized as regards stresses from the environment and its interaction with people, animals and things within its scope of existence.

Without this neutralization (which just means a condition where the dog is not reacting unusually to a stimulus in the environment – this is what is meant by the term ‘conditioning’), the dog is being stressed by its own lack of experience and confidence with life. Look, you cannot take a pup and throw it into your life, your world and expect it to adapt to everything without your help, exposure, guidance or repetitive training in relationship to that particular thing.

Want the dog to not freak out every time you vacuum? Try introducing the pup to the machine slowly, gradually and allow it to gain a level of confidence about that particular object, both on and off, until it is fully neutralized on it as a thing. Does the pup get stressed when travelling? Well, instead of drugging the animal, why not try to take it on short, fun trips to the park, with lots of treats, praise, etc making it an experience that the pup will have imprinted as a good thing. Do this enough times and you have a dog that can travel and actually wants to do so.

I find that, more often than not, the owner will simply cave to the reaction of the dog or pup and try to adjust to the complication. For example, if the dog cannot load into the car, you have to train the dog to do so. Contrary to popular belief, dogs were not born with the ability to jump into a car. I know to some of you this may sound silly, but there are those of us who were trained in the art of training our dogs by parents, friends, etc. and then there are others who were not that lucky.

Given the demands by the culture to receive instant results for everything, it isn’t surprising to me that owners are sometimes impatient with their dog’s training. When I say it takes time and lots of repetition, I get nods of agreement, but in truth, not enough actual agreement on this. Dog training takes time and lots of repetition, period. That includes socialization, as that is a form of training. Please remember that when you take home your pup. He or she is very willing to please, but needs to be shown, directed and trained properly in order to actually do so.

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

I originally wrote about the following topic on the post ‘Buy Now, Pay Later,’, but I thought some more clarification was in order, being that this is an important issue, so here we go.

We all know that, in the human world, babies who are well cared for and most always grow up to be healthy adolescents and adults. I don’t have hard statistics for you, but as I said, we all know that this is true. We also know that an infant raised on crappy sugar based formula, tons of carbohydrates soon graduates to Pepsi and by the time he is twenty, may develop diabetes, or worse.

The same is true for canines. A pup comes out of the womb and if it is healthy at birth, should thrive, given the fact that the mom has adequate milk, the milk is good, meaning not infected or infiltrated with some harmful bacteria. Okay, given that, the pup should get off to a good start.

Here are some examples of getting a pup off to a bad start:

1. If the breeder fails to keep the whelping box clean, the pups are liable to develop coccidiosis, a very contagious and very deadly intestinal infection, if not treated immediately.

2. If the breeder fails to worm the pups early on and doesn’t continue to worm the pups as a preventative until eight weeks, the worms grow to adulthood and the pups develop enteritis and could possibly die if not treated. If they survive, they may have health issues later in life, I assure you. By the way, all pups are born with worm larvae. The mom passes them on, always. Go and ask your vet if you don’t believe me.

3. Feeding a cheap, low protein food when weaning will also be a cause of problems, just like the human baby formula example I mentioned earlier. Purina Puppy Chow is not what you feed a pup who is undergoing the stress of growth, weaning, socialization etc.

4. Weaning too fast may also cause issues, both physically and mentally for the pup. They need a nice, slow weaning runway so they can be done with mom and have their gastrointestinal tract fully adjusted to solid food.

Okay, so everyone nowadays is a breeder. A person with a male and a female canine is somehow qualified to call themselves a breeder, just because they have AKC papers on both dogs. I think some folks think this is some kind of cash cow that automatically makes money hand over fist and because they don’t really care about the breed they are dealing with, they do stupid, careless things and soon they are out of the breeding game. Successfully reproducing livestock is hard work, requires a thorough knowledge of the breed or species and several years of experience learning animal husbandry skills.

If you buy a discount pup from someone who knows nothing of this stuff and has done nothing to prepare the pup for the outside world, will you care? Even if you pay for double the difference in vet visits over the next few years?

Okay, this was ‘I told you so’, Part Two…

Best,

Bob