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Originally Posted by fbkeays 21 rottweilers??? Dang, I am impressed. My rottweiler club has hosted AHBA herding trial and tests and it is embarrassing the lack of rottweilers present, even for the HCT. This last year the reason given by many was that they thought herding would "break" their young dogs. If the dog is broken, then it couldn't do conformation. What a load of ...
So did any of the rotts "break" as a result of the instinct test? |
Nope, no broken dogs, but I did hear that at least a couple slept pretty hard all the way home
I had actually hoped to see a few more, but we were pretty happy with the turn-out
However, that said, I do strongly believe that an introduction to herding done inappropriately can definitely set dogs up for injury, and that injury can be physical or mental (heck, dogs can get hurt running around their own backyards herding is definitely more dangerous). I would be pretty picky about where I trained/who I trained with, and as far as AHBA trials and HCT's go I'd rather see people not entering than entering dogs at a level that they aren't thouroughly prepared for and then having a bad experience (for the dog, handler or stock---I've seen way too many trial-wise dogs created this way). I know nothing about the facility or stock being used in this case, but I'd like to give folks the benifit of the doubt and venture a guess that this may have an impact on your entries as well. I also believe that young dogs that are carrying adult weight (while they have the bulk of an adult they haven't built the muscle and bone strength yet) are more predisposed to injury (and people know when that is the case--and for some people where conformation is the priority I could definitely see them avoiding herding!).