Rottweilers

Long life, canine and human versions

May 6, 2009 by kathi

Chanel, an almost-21-year-old dachshund mix who is the world’s oldest dog according to the Guinness World Records, made an appearance on the Today show.

Chanel’s story is noteworthy to me not only because of her age, but because she has spent that entire life with her original owner, through bad times and good. I have been a supporter of and an occasional volunteer for rescue, and may I say that the stories that a rescue volunteer has to listen to when talking to people who are giving up their dogs make you lose faith in the basic goodness of human nature. The tough situations that owner Denice Shaughnessy was faced with, in addition to frequent moves as a soldier in the U.S. Army and later a caretaker to her grandparents, are tougher than many of the dog-dumping excuses that I’ve heard over the years, and yet Ms. Shaughnessy kept Chanel with her through all of the difficult times. She is really a great example of responsible, caring dog ownership, and I applaud her for the lifetime commitment to Chanel.

But, yeah… 21 years. Wow. I would have given just about anything to be able to have that long with any of the dearly departed vom Viersen Rottweilers. In many larger breeds, anything past 10 years is truly a gift. Since three of the four angel Rottweilers made it past 10 years, and one close to 12 years, I can’t honestly say I was cheated of time with them.

There are a fair number of Rottweilers that have made it farther into the double-digits, though, and the Rottweiler is the initial breed chosen by the Gerald P. Murphy Cancer Foundation for a canine Exceptional Longevity Database. Information gathered for this project will be used to learn more about the aging process in canines and how it relates to the human aging process. The Murphy Foundation also uses Rottweilers in a study about cancer prevention with dietary antioxidants. Dietary antioxidants are also part of a trial for human patients: a study on prostate cancer prevention for men over 55 years of age.

This is of great interest to me, not only because of my love of Rottweilers, but because of my own family’s participation in a different ongoing longevity study. My family also has more than its share of cancer survivors, and unfortunately a few others who did not survive, so I am interested in the studies for so many reasons.

(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 6 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 102 of 274)

ATTS canine temperament test

May 4, 2009 by kathi

Freya and Axel are entered in a temperament test to be given this coming Saturday by the American Temperament Test Society.

All of our dear departed Rottweilers passed this temperament test. This test evaluates a dog’s reaction as it walks with its handler through a course where they will encounter neutral, friendly and and threatening people, visual and auditory stimuli, and unusual surfaces under foot. The handler may not command the dog, or in fact talk to the dog at all, during the test as it is a test of the dog’s temperament, not its training.

You are not supposed to actually train for this test, but the dog should be socialized to the things it will encounter in the test. People, sounds and sights similar to those in the test scenarios are part of most everyone’s daily life. Hopefully, the gunshots and the weirdly-dressed stranger are not a big part of your daily life!

Many dogs fail the subtests for unusual footing: the dogs must walk over a 15-foot length of clear plastic sheeting, and the 12-foot length of an unfolded wire exercise pen. My dogs don’t have any problem with walking on plastic, as they do so every time they get into my vehicle.

Wire or metal footing is something they hadn’t had to deal with, though. Ever since hearing of a number of isolated but deadly incidents in several large cities, including Chicago, where dogs were electrocuted by stray voltage running through metal plates or grates in the sidewalk, there is no way I would have let my dogs walk on a sidewalk grate.

So they were understandably somewhat suspicious when I dragged out the exercise pen to make sure they were exposed to the wire footing at least a few times before test day. Neither one wanted to walk over it at first. It is amazing how quickly some food or a favorite toy can coax a reluctant dog to follow you across the unfamiliar surface. Once they go across a few times and realize that nothing bad happens, and in fact something good (again, that food or toy) might happen, it’s not a big deal any more.

I feel pretty good about their chances of passing. Let’s hope they do!

(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 4 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 100 of 274)

Freya’s training notes (28 of 30/94 of 274)

April 28, 2009 by kathi

Due to the wet weather, Freya and I didn’t get very much training in over the last week. We did get a couple of days of nice weather. Those days fell before I had finished printing up a set of rally obedience signs, so I didn’t get a chance to set up a practice course in the back yard.

From AKC's official Rally Obedience Rules

Each sign has a graphic and a few words to describe the exercise to perform at that station. We practiced some of the exercises in the kitchen. The exercises that can, and in fact should, be done in a small space include 270° left and right turns, 360° left and right circles, call front-left and right finishes, sit and halt, and down and halt. So we did get in some training specifically for the rally obedience exercises.

The sunny days were probably not used to best advantage in terms of training, but Freya thought they were just fine with time to play ball and wrestle with Axel.

freya_dscn0097
Here she is in heel position at my left side, wondering why I’m pointing a camera in her face instead of holding a treat or a toy for her.

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Here she is right after coming in for an almost perfectly straight front (we have issues with good fronts), wondering why a light is flashing at her instead of my hand signaling her to go around me to finish.

I think we’re ready for a good hour of training at tomorrow night’s drop-in class!

Memories almost lost (27 of 30/93 of 274)

April 27, 2009 by kathi

I didn’t think the upcoming closing of Geocities would have much of an effect on me. Like everyone else who was on the ‘net 15 years ago, I did have a Geocities page at one time. Even back then, it wasn’t my “real” website, but just another free service and another excuse to post some pictures of my Rottweilers (my very first Rottweilers) and a link to my real website. It disappeared a while ago due to inactivity and I barely even noticed.

I help maintain websites for a few friends, and the ones who started out on Geocities have long since moved either to my VPS, to Yahoo! Small Business Hosting, or to one of the many discount web hosts who charge less than $10 per month and whose names I barely remember.

All around the ‘net, people are either wallowing in overly sentimental reminiscences about their first websites at Geocities, or else snarking about how bad the service was. Archive Team is in the process of saving as many Geocities sites as possible. They say they’ve already archived everything from 1999 and before.

I didn’t think any of this affected me. Until I was looking through my Rottweiler bookmarks and realized that one of the sites has a photo and story about my dear departed Jake’s sire Aiko. Obviously that link won’t work whenever we reach “later this year.” I don’t know if the web site owner plans to archive or move his site. I’ve never saved the photo and story (just for personal use of course), and I would be very sad if I could never see them again.

So check your bookmarks and see if anything you cherish is out there on Geocities. Just in case.

Updates: 31DBBB, Freya’s training (26 of 30/92 of 274)

April 26, 2009 by kathi

Although the results may not yet be visible to the naked eye, I am still making my way slowly through 31DBBB. I haven’t been able to keep up with the one-task-per-day pace during the week, and I’m not caught up as far as I want to be, but I am still getting a lot out of the project. You can sign up at any time, and I suggest it for anyone who wants to improve their blogging. Even if you don’t join the project, check out some of the 31DBBB posts at ProBlogger!

One change that is probably visible, even to the naked eye, is the header on the blog. Back near the beginning of April, the first task of 31DBBB was to write an “elevator pitch” for our blogs. Mine is here, and I’ve finally made some of the changes and additions outlined in that post. I hope you like the new header, which features my favorite puppy picture of the lovely Freya!

I’m currently bogged down a bit on Day 8, where I need to interlink my post with other related posts within the blog. Yes, there’s a plugin for that. But as I started to work on this task, I realized that my categories and tags needed a major overhaul in order to work properly with plugins, and for that matter, to make it easier should I end up choosing to do my related links manually. So that’s a project to complete this coming week. I hope.

Freya’s first rally obedience training session went very well. We didn’t even trip over any of the signs. Our team’s biggest problem is, as usual, me. My leash handling needs work. Rally Novice is done entirely on leash, and keeping a loose leash is very important to avoid point deductions. I also need to get accustomed to using as much body language and verbal encouragement as needed. Extra help like that is not allowed in conventional obedience competition nor in Schutzhund obedience, so most handlers will phase it out during training as early as possible.

It’s not that I don’t want to continue on to conventional obedience competition or a Schutzhund BH, but realistically, I don’t know if I ever will. So it makes the most sense at this point to get through the Rally titles using every legal command and motivator that I am able to, and then worry about phasing out the extra commands and encouragement later.