I will agree that some Dobermanns do not transfer owners well for attachment reasons. And the other Dobes because it will be too hard and too painful for the new handler to gain respect. He will get eaten. I have the only Dobermann in a GSD dominated club. I was advised against getting a Dobermann, and was even laughed at by some. That changed when I brought my new puppy out for the first time. I think everyones opinion has changed about the Dobermann at our club, and I have even had people offer to buy him. I often hear that Dobermanns need to be worked differently? I am curious as to why you believe that? As far as I am concerned its an excuse. And this is the reason more and more people believe this is ok and still breed these dogs that need a different touch. My dog has worked on the hardest of helpers and has never been treated differently. The only difference is he has been worked harder than most dogs of any breed his age, this is because he is capable of it. I believe that saying the Dobermann needs a different touch and can not be worked like other working dogs is an excuse used to justify breeding inferior dogs. This is not what the working Dobermann needs if its going to survive.

Steve wrote: " I often hear that Dobermanns need to be worked differently? I am curious as to why you believe that? As far as I am concerned its an excuse."


That is a good point.

JMO, but anyone who thinks you can train all GSDs the same is nuts, as well as a crappy trainer. Each dog is an individual with his own strengths and weaknesses, regardless of breed, and a good trainer adapts to the needs of the individual dog.

I guess I was misunderstood. WHat I was trying to say is that the general rule is that dobermanns are high in prey and high in defense from a very young age. They also do not always have nerves of steel and are very sensitive so you have to be more careful not to make a mistake as they are not as forgiving as say the GSD.

Having had GSD's in the past i know that they are medium-high prey and low-medium defense, so of course the approach to training is going to be different. Not neccesarily because of its breed but because of the individual characteristics.

Its not an excuse, that's just the way it is.

Again, I'd say such generalizations are useless. There are plenty of GSDs that are VERY unforgiving, etc. Read the individual and work it accordingly.

If generalizations were useless then as a breeder I wouldn't have to say...gee, you probably would do better with one of the GSDs I know of instead of a Mal or Dobe (after evaluating the particular person and their situation..) The different breeds have different nerve bases, no matter how good the dogs.. I have had Dobermanns for over 30 years, out of many different bloodlines, Belgians and GSDs since the mid 80's so while my generalizations may be useless to some, I do have experience training, living with and breeding these different dogs and IMO there are generalizations that may be useful to a person researching which dog (if any) is right for them.

GENERALLY speaking, some people find a Dobe too high energy, too reactive and in the case of many males, too dominant.

Again, I feel like I'm being misunderstood. Maybe I'm not saying it right because english is not my first language, and I'm not familiar with a lot of the terms.

I realize that every dog, is different, not because of the breed, but because of individual characteristics. However, there are certain characteristic that are present in some breeds and not others. For example rotts are pretty mellow in general, which does not mean that there are no hihgly energetic, highly driven rotts, but that they are generally not very common. Just as you don't see many (if any) mellow mals.

For example, with my GSD's I had to do a lot of drive building exercises to bring up that drive. With my dobes I sometimes have to do exercises to bring that drive down because there's so much of it bottled up. Now if I started doing exercises to bring up (the already up through the roof) drive, I'd end up with a dog that was out of control, bouncing off the walls, and deemed untrainable by many .

Now if I end up with a medium drive dobe, of course I will train it accordingly and vice versa.

I am only saying that because of the differences in drives and their balances in different breeds, sometimes a different approach might be neccesary to get the best out of a particular dog.

I saw this old thread and thought about what the vet here on base told me the other day. He gets aksed to clip nail somethimes and he told me that he ALWAYS asks that Rotts be muzzled. I asked why, he told me that some breeds give alot of warning BEFORE they decide to use force. He says that he has NEVER been bitten by a Doberman while giving them the go-over, there have been plenty of times when a Dobe gave him the warning, it was muzzled, and they went on with procedures. GSDs & Mals, he says give a little less warning, he has been bitten 3 times by the K9 dogs, and then he says that Rotts just don't give much warning at all, so he asks the owners to muzzle them. He has been a vet for about 17 years for the Army so he deals with K9 units mainly. Anyway, I thought that this was worth sharing with ya'll, interesting bit of info.

Let's not bring up dead posts from years ago, ok? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />