Alan,
training two Boerboels is two more than most of the people in this country have even seen, much less trained. I'm sorry that doesn't rate as "experience" in your book.

Again, please, I'm waiting for your first hand experience with the breed. When you trained one, did you have more success than me? Are the ones that you're seeing first hand, with your own eyes, different than what I saw?
Or are you just posting your opinion as a "forum warrior", with zero first hand experience?
It's real easy to criticize when you've never laid your eyes on, much less trained, the breed that we're talking about. :rolleyes:

Will,

Isn't it funny that several of the posters that DO own and TRAIN them agree that many of your statements are true with many of the dogs they have seen. I don't ever recall you saying ALL were bad, just the ones you had seen.

Evaluating rare breeds is tough. The biggest problem is that it is easier to take a good dog and turn it bad than to take a bad dog and turn it good. When ever I look at a new breed (or dog) I look at the owner. How do they handle themselves, how do they handle their dogs, how well are the dogs trained? Then I look at the breed history. Then how does the handler handle the dog in relation to what the dog is supposed to be. Then I look at the dog, and even then you can get a bad reading on the breed if you don't a selection of them from different breedings and with different trainers and handlers. You can't even count on the discription provided by breeders in many cases with out knowing their background and experience. I have been told several times that the BRT shouldn't be trained for protection because they are too protective to start with, that they have no drive, and that they are a companion breed that won't do well in protection. I would say that all of those statements are false.

Many breeds have significantly different training, socialization, and handler requirements. They type of training and socilaiztion done today is much different than has been done in the past. Many breeds need to be handled differently than even your average working mal/gsd and MUCH differently than the average pet dog of a "working breed". Many people that get them believe the hype and like what they see in an individual dog with out any idea of the amount and type of work required to get the dog in that condition and think that they are going to get what they would get from an AKC pet breeder. Even among working people the "Defensive" breeds are much different than the herding breeds, and I didn't believe how much different until I started working with some. Just by looking at the description of the temperament and handling requirements of the Boerboel that improperly handled they could be a disaster.

Richard,
There's a fellow with some level of knowledge of training on one of the Boerboel boards who discusses training for SchH with them - he understands their temperments and makes allowances for both their strengths and weaknesses. That in my eyes is a smart trainer.
A Boerboel trains different than a GSD or BRT, as you pointed out.
But without a method of testing, such as an Ob test, or something like PSA or ASR, all the owners that are so convinced that their dogs will rise to the occasion when required are *guessing* - they don't honestly know. And my experience with most dog owners is that they're not realistic in knowing what their dog will do in a given episode.
"Wish fulfillment" for an entire breed.....yikes!

Alan had problems with my quote in an old thread that the Boerboels were needed only by Mafia kingpins and people with a contract out on them. Well, most people that actually need a PPD ( that's *need*, not *want*, two very different things ) tend to unfortunately, be people that don't have a background in dogs. A large, aggressive dog requires a responsible, attentive owner - and a unexperienced owner is not a good candidate for any guard breed, not just a Boerboel.

The Boerboel boards had a lot of inexpereinced people asking a lot of elementary dog questions. I saw almost *no* experience with dogs by the posters on multiple Boerboel forums. It worries me a bit that those breeders are selling their dogs to people that don't know much about dogs, much less a guard breed. And there were multiple threads on the three different forums that I went to, with some of the threads ending in a discussion on euthanizing the aggressive Boerboel - so my clients aren't the only ones that went through this. And with such a small population of the dogs around, the fact that I can find that many threads on aggression problems makes me think that maybe what I saw wasn't as unusual as the breeders of those dogs would lead people to believe.

Alan,
I do not put myself forth as an "expert" or even a "so called expert", in your words- you would be unable to find that term used by me anywhere on any forum or print article that I've written. I do however train a lot of dogs, and from the Boerboel forums that I read through, I'd be pretty confident saying that I was as an experienced a trainer as anyone else that I saw posting.
Most of those forum posts were pet owners bragging on their puppies ( not that there's anything wrong with that, I wish we had a brag forum on Leerburg ) or breeders selling dogs. Neither of those groups are great sources of information about a dog's true temperment.

And I'm still waiting on your first hand experience with these dogs, you seemed to have skipped that part in your last post. I posted what I saw first hand while training that breed, please fill us in on your views, as you are so critical of mine.

Just wanted to say up front I don't know much abou these dogs but did a little research.

I think the Yahoo boerboel group is a much better source of info that the message board posted above. I believe a gentleman there named Norman Epstein is currently working some bite work with his BB.

I remember seeing on a breeder's site (Perhaps Baden's?) pictures of a BB doing bite work.

As far as American breeders working their dogs, I've heard (so can't really say for sure) of two. Blackwell Boerboels and Harris Boerboels.

Yep, I wandered through the 900+ posts in the yahoo site to help educate myself on the breed. Took a while...

When I first saw the Baden name I was worried that the cancer of the dog world had gotten to another breed, but it was an original native land kennel <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Forgive me if I offended you. I'm not critical of you. I only thought that one statement was outrageous where you said, "You only should have one of these dogs if you are running from the mob and need protection." So, I invited the Boerboel people in to give their side of the story. This thread started out 100% negative on this breed and needed some balance.

I commend you for researching the breed for the sake of knowledge. That's what I'm doing as well.

Also, I am not critical of Leerburg or the forum. I've spent 1000s of dollars with Leerburg and I have a link to the forum on my website. I have learned a lot from it. I've even learned a lot from your posts. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Alan,
being called a "so-called trainer" is an insult no matter how you spin it. And you weren't man enough to tell me to my face, you had to do it on another board.
I base my opinions on what I see and work with first hand. You base you opinions on what you read - big difference there, but I'm the "so-called trainer". What does that make you? :rolleyes:
I won't be forgetting it.

it would seem that these rocking H dogs are used for livestock guarding/herding. we have some of the same bloodlines in boer goats as these folks, and if you know anything at all about them, you know that boer goats (especially the bucks) get huge and are very powerful. my hubby's dog (the gorgeous t.v. pillow) is a pretty decent herding dog and can easily handle the youngsters and the does, but needed help with our old buck and i wouldn't even consider sending him after the one we have now. it takes both my husband and me to move him from one building to another. i guess what i am trying to say is that this clears up what these dogs are all about. if used for that type of work, they truly are awesome dogs, but needless to say, a completely different sort of dog, not like what most folks would use for schutzhund or other sports. i can see them being really successful in almost any sort of guard work, where they could put their massive size and strength to good use.

Reinier, what is the SABT test/evaluation? What does it test for and how does it test them? Is it just conformation, or is there a test of the dog's abilities?

I couldn't find info on that.