I hear tell that BRTs are going to be approved for registration by the AKC as of July 1. Do you think that this will have any negative effect on the breed or do you think that it is still rare enough that there aren't many back yard breeders for this breed? I have chosen this as my next breed (since I have 3 dogs currently, I have a while before I get one...)

Also, do you think it will affect the purchase price of the dogs? I suppose only show dogs would go up eh?

Pardon any ignorance, I'm new to the dog world

THX GK

I doubt that the AKC recognition will change the price much. Unfortunately what I am afraid of happening is that there will be an increase in dogs bred for "show" only. Currently there are only a half dozen people even working protection with the breed in the U.S. Even people that have done protection work other places aren't doing it here. To my knoledge thare are very few people in the world doing protection work with the breed and a few doing Tracking only with their dogs. My impression is that the gulf between working and show is widening and is going to get worse with AKC recognition.

There are currently 2 clubs for the breed in the U.S. and I see no indication that either is very interested in the working capabilities of the breed. One is the AKC parent club and therefore not able to participate in working trials even if they had an interest, and the other is strongly dominated by conformation only breeders with "concerns" about the dogs bred for work being unmanagable in the conformation ring. The comment I hear often is "We don't need a dog going after a judge in the ring". The funny thing about it is at a couple of shows that I entered the only 2 adults not going after everyone that walked by was on showline dog (with little interest in working) and the only protection trained dog there. What a shock!

Some of the show line dogs will still work, and some of the working line dogs can show. The disturbing tend I see in the conformation dogs is that they are getting much larger. It also seems to be creating some problems with joints. The other half to that is the standard is skewed to dogs that mature faster and that leaves them at greater risk for joint problems. They are not starting with great hips and I worry that they will get worse if the rapid growth pattern continues.

Hi,guys!We have two of them,they are show dogs,but now we are doing protection and I don't agree that working dog can not be show dog also-that is a problem of the owner.I am looking forward to compete in protection because they are too smart for conformation only,people don't or do not want to realise that this is not a pudel,and it's suppose to do what he suppose to do.They need it.about hips.The breed is young,everything comes out and it is very difficult to predict anything .But the breed had purpose and you have to keep working abilities besides the the good look or exelent hips.That is not all.

Svetlana, this is just an observation and is not meant to be directed at you. From what I have seen so far, the former Soviet Union countries are way behind on most information regarding training and breeding methods of working dogs. This is a generalization of course, but this has been my experience and it seems to me that it will be a while until they catch up.

It seems to me that this comes from lack of information and access to it in general, as well as the different approach to dogs overall. I sometimes wonder if people over there are just not willing to learn. Just my two cents.

Sincerely,
Marina


Originally posted by Svetlana Rapoport:
about hips.The breed is young,everything comes out and it is very difficult to predict anything .But the breed had purpose and you have to keep working abilities besides the the good look or exelent hips.That is not all.

Marina,

From talking to several people in Russia and some of the other Eastern Bloc countries your observation isn't far off the mark. All of the people I have talked to the training used is very similar to the VERY old German training. Very defenxive starting after the dog is at least 2 years old. In the very limited work I have done, the breed has good drives, provided they are bred for work and the quality of the drive increases with work. They are also a little different in how they express some of the drives. The biggest has been prey drive. Unlike the Shepherd breeds they will tend to react in prey to someting moving towards them. What would put most dogs in to defense is just another prey bite for them. It makes it a little more difficult to communicate that to an agitator. Once we got that figured out we made rapid progress. In addition they are very smart and bore easily. It is very easy to over train. Some times you will make more progress by taking a couple of weeks off and then coming back to the training.