Breeding Before 2 yrs of age

[Mick Trainer]

What kind of pressure are you talking about Mick to get the dog to show the true temprement?

Thanks,
Trina

Like others have said when we are looking at it from a Titling point of view Schutzhund would be what I was refering to however in real terms I would be happy with any temperament test that places the dog under direct threat and stress. This would include direct threat from a person as well as exposeure to other high stimulus objects. SchH is to seek for a working dog and whilst this is something I would like to see more of I would simply be happy witha test that sought high nerve development and showed the dog to be sound and not scared at low levels of threat.

Mick.

[Mick Trainer]

SADLY cardiac problems are present in all lines of the breed worldwide. Many many dogs overseas drop dead, usually it is called "heat stroke" or "poisoning" or who knows what because .. I don't know why. Whilst I am more than happy to say that SAS does indeed exist in all lines etc I was simply stating that even though I would never consider my research to be conclusive with regards to the prevelancy of this issue out of the large number of breeders and Vets I contacted in regards this matter I found a total of 3 unexplained deaths at a young age, and few confirmed case of SAS cases though 1 breeder certainly thought it was a bigger problem than is being let on. Personally I have had zero of my own bred dogs die of any cardio related problems. I spoke in depth with one of the top Cardio Vets in Melbourne and whilst his records showed a slight increase in Heart related problems within Rottweilers it wasn't a huge jump and mostly related to other less concerning problems.

Personally I would be happy to screen all my dogs forth with but I do feel that we have far more dogs dying from other health related issues and few from SAS and feel that as stated this is the reason there is no screening for it as yet. Personally I would rather be on the front foot and start acting before the horse has bolted (and we have a massive SAS problem) but the question was asked why do we not screen for SAS and the answer was given that we have few deaths from it and thus the bodies that oversee the breeding practices of the Rottweiler have yet to identify it as a problem in Aust.

Mick.

[frontierrots]

and if you ask top Rott breeders in the US, especially those who import. Most will tell you it is not the problem some of us make it

HOWEVER that is a deception because I and many others have seen the pedigrees and talked with the owners of hundreds of people with affected dogs.

It's one of those things that can exist at low symptom levels in the breed population and vets don't think much about it because well, they are not actually looking for it.

Unless Au has an entirely closed population with no import line influence, the odds are quite high that the same dogs who have sired or whelped pups here with SAS will have some decendants in oz as well

[makjamz]

Damp says<<I am not Mick!!!

SchH in my opinion takes a good dog, but it has nothing to do with testing temperament.

No one now a day would drive to a training field and pull the dog out of the trunk and let it do a courage test. Today we train and prepare a dog for SchH… work with drives, bites and build confidence! And when finally the dog is ready for the trial, it knows exactly what to come… it’s a (good) program, where the helper works according to a set of rules, and we have worked for months and years to adjust our dog to tolerate exactly the stress. >>

You misunderstood my post. I am speaking from working with a SchH/VPGIII, IPO3 dog. Who on der planet would pluck a dog out of the trunk and do a courage test? Firstly - I make my young dogs bombproof with tons of varied graduating to obnoxious stimuli - so to build traffic sureness and stability.

Excuse me if I was vague.

[Mick Trainer]

Unless Au has an entirely closed population with no import line influence, the odds are quite high that the same dogs who have sired or whelped pups here with SAS will have some decendants in oz as well Oh no I agree it is here and there is no doubt we have influence from imported dogs but what we havn't yet seen is the dead dogs. Like I said very few knew of any unexplained deaths. So even with Vets not on the whole looking for it we would see a large increase in un-explained deaths which at this time we havn't yet had. Like I said I see zero harm in being proactive and screening for it even if in the end is ins't a huge problem but as yet no one is pushing the panic button as there doesn't seem to be a huge killer and as in the common theme of things I doubt anything will happen until it does.

Cancer seems to be the issue of the time.

Mick.

[TrinaJ]

Originally Posted by Mick Trainer

Cancer seems to be the issue of the time.

Mick.

You've got that right Mick. I agree, there is no harm in being proactive, I am guessing the breeders just dont want the additional expense if they dont 'have' to get it done.

Personally I would like to make sure everything was okay with my dog. Besides, what if people from US wanted the puppies, in the US, as Frontier says, they want the dogs heart tested and would be more likely to get an import from here IF it was clear.....Mind you our dogs now have tails so its probably irrelevant these days.

Thanks everyone for clearing up my question on heart testing and also the temprement testing.

OP, I seemed to get this thread a little off the track and i am sorry about that.


Trina

[Mick Trainer]

SchH in my opinion takes a good dog, but it has nothing to do with testing temperament. Oh Damp I knew there was a reason that I love you. Whilst I think SchH does indeed show something towards judging temperament I do agree it is not a true temperament test as such and that having a scenario where the dog has not been prepared for it is vastly superior however my comment was more towards what titles show temperament rather than comfirmation etc and why I put up SchH etc in this answer. The original statement was made to show that in Aust breeders do little to title for temperament.

Mick.