Yesterday we finally received Freya’s certificate from the ATTS temperament test we did back in May. She is now officially Sciroco’s Freya vom Viersen CGC TT!
The Letter of Certification emphasizes that a dog who passes this test is likely of sound temperament, but that the test is not a warranty of sound temperament. This seems sort of obvious, so I wonder if people have attempted to misrepresent the certification as being more than what it is. That would be sad, but not particularly surprising. Sort of like the people who try to claim that their therapy-certified dog (usually not a working therapy dog) are service dogs so they can get them into places that are normally off-limits to dogs, which is so wrong and makes it harder for those with a legitimate need to get their service animals admitted without question.
Finally, a word about the scoring. Responses for each subpart of the test are scored from 0-10, with the desired response being in the Average range of 4-6 where the dog shows either a positive response or a mildly negative response followed by quick recovery.
You can learn more about ATTS and the TT at the ATTS website:
http://www.atts.org/
(NaBloPoMo | July ’09: 19 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 176 of 274)