July 11, 2007 by 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

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July 11, 2007 by Bob.

This is a short list of some of the stuff I have seen in ads for Rottweiler pups. I find most of it amusing, but it speaks to the relative ignorance of the people who pose as breeders. Let the buyer beware!

1. “Where the standard still means tree trunk bone and giant heads.”

Okay, what standard are you referring to? Maybe your own. I will wager anyone on the planet that they cannot find that load of crap in the actual written breed standard for the Rottweiler. Go to the AKC website and look up the Rottweiler breed standard and tell me I’m wrong.

2. “Members of Avid, OFA, AKC.”

Wow. I did not know that microchipping your dog (Avid) and sending in a hip xray (OFA) made you members of their club. There are no such clubs. Now, I will concede that these people probably were members of the AKC. But, so is every other person on the planet with an AKC registered dog! Not so much impressive as neccessary.

3. ‘AKC, OFA, DNA’

See number two above. Additionally, ‘DNA’ just means you have more than three litters a year from the same sire and were required to send in a swab of your male’s DNA to the AKC. That is all it means. Not a distinction. Not a title or achievement, unless you consider having DNA a distinction. Certainly not a reason to put it on your ad, you dufus.

4. ‘All German’ or ‘Of German Descent’

Again, so what. See my blog on American vs German (May 9th 2007) for more detail. I guess this person has no idea ALL ROTTWEILERS CAME FROM GERMANY.

5. “lovely litter of Massweiler pups…”

Okay what the hell is a Massweiler? Oh, read on in the ad to find out it is a cross between an English Mastiff and a Rottweiler. Oh, you mean a mixed breed? Yea, I thought so. Your ‘designer dogs’ are ruining the breed, thank you.

6. “German Lines”

A variation on the ‘All German’ item above. Again, so what - all Rottweilers have German lines if you go far back enough. Which in the case of this particular breeder is about fifteen generations. (sigh)
7. ‘AKC Imported German Bred Male’

So, what the **ck is a ‘German Bred Male’? I’ve read it five times and I still don’t understand what this means. All I am sure of is that the person who wrote this ad copy doesn’t have a clue either.

Bob

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