hello everyone. my name is Collin and Im fro hawaii. I was referred to this site by a local schutzhund club. I have 2 rottweilers. my girl is 8 years old and my boy is almost 11 weeks. I had another boy but we lost him at the age of 6 to health problems. the girl was trained by me at home with no formal training classes. she came out pretty decent. my 6 year old boy was also trained at home but was a little more on the rascal side. my 11 week boy is going to be trained off of what I learned from this site. I am trying to take a different approach with my puppy because I'd like him to either earn a Rally, CD, CGC or ultimately a schutzhund title. let the fun begin..hehe

Welcome Collin....you are in a great place....

Also, feel free to show us some pictures of your pack......hint....hint.....

Welcome

What Island are you on Collin?

Hi Collin,

Are you on the Big Island? I'm on Maui. We have Belgian Sheepdogs (the black ones).

Aloha,
Luana

sorry folks !! I didnt discover the "active topics" until this one got buried...lol I bumped this up to give more of a clear idea of my goals with my rotts...


Luana and Carol, Im on Oahu...

I bought my girl in 1999 with the intentions of having her as just a pet. I was amazed at how smart a rottweiler was and their ability to be trained. I trained her at home with no OB classes, just books. she did fine. I bought my first boy in 2001. I got arrogant and thought I knew exactly what I was doing but there were 2 factors - #1) This was a male instead of female, 2) my girl was still fairly young and I did not take into consideration the "pack structure" theory.

the male turned out to be ok, but still a little stubborn at times. as I mentioned we had to put him down due to health reasons. he was an active jumper and had bad hips. turned out one of his vertabrae slipped and pinched a nerve in his spine. he was paralyzed in the hind legs and started sores and cuts from either urinating on himself or cuts from dragging himself all around our yard while at home. it was just a hard site to see and he was totally unhappy after a while...

bottom line is had I trained him better, had I had more control over him, he would still be around. I failed him as an owner and trainer. I take it as his death was my fault.

with my now 3 month old male, I want to do the job right this time. I want him to be a "pet" but get him a Rally , CD, and CGC title. Ed's site and all you members are so very helpful. I thank all of you. there is another website strictly for rottweilers. that forum is terrible. the info is good, but the peoples attitude on there is just so condesending. rather than help, they wanna just bash you for lack of knowledge and tell you about all your mistakes. they talk down to you. not here, you guys are awesome.


sorry so long...LoL

Collin, one thing you may want to do with your new boy, or both for that matter, is to start carting/drafting with them! It's what they were bred for, after all.

My wife and I fully intend to have our Rotties doing cart work and/or drafting. It's a job they love and that they are designed for.

Luck!
-Jim

Or to take it a step further, weight pulling! So much fun and they love it!! You don't need any special equipment at first other than a pulling harness and a milk jug.

Mine are so tired and happy at the end of the day, and they look great. I also throw in a lot of swimming as well, but that is a different topic.

Any way you go, have fun!

Hehhehheh... Jessica has the right of it. Sorry I didn't mention that drafting=weight pulling. Too much farm-boy in me, I suppose.

-J

Hah, when I mentioned at home that I was going to buy a cart for the dogs to pull, I got shut down. No one thought it would be as fun as me. I guess a dog pulling a cart in the city isn’t cool or common.

Now if I could buy a country home…

But the one thing I wanted to point out is that this training happens later in the pups life. Any extra weight at his age now could hurt him and his growing joints/bones. There is imprint training, like the (empty) milk jug that I mentioned… but NO weight as a pup at all.