Why some ‘Rottweiler breeders’ want to confuse you

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

This entry was posted on May 9, 2007 at 10:17 pm and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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