ALL ABOUT ROTTWEILERS : THE BUTCHER’S DOG
(bright synths)
– [Announcer] Dogumentary TV.
Producing the best breed
documentaries on YouTube.
(dog barks)
(upbeat music)
– My name’s Mike Burns, Vom
Haus Burns Rottweiler Kennel.
I’ve been in the breed now for 20 years.
(upbeat music)
Been breeding at this
status for 10 years now.
I’m also one of the founder members
of the newly-founded club,
Pacific Northwest Rottweiler Club,
which is in Olympia, Washington.
We’re a full-member club of the RKNA,
Rottweiler Club North America.
Soon, I’ll be apprenticing
to become a judge,
and I’ll be, when I’m
done, through the RKNA,
I’ll actually be able to
judge internationally.
– But character, medium sized ears.
Excellent disproportions.
(upbeat music)
– Today, we’re in Lodi,
California, at a secret show.
This is actually
the Rottweiler Club North
American Club’s secret show.
The judge is from Australia.
It’s her first time in the country,
and we’re gonna show some dogs
I brought from our kennel.
I’ve got a son of Zeven, and I think Zeven
has been on a couple of
the videos in the past.
And so, we’re gonna see him
today, he’s now 24 months old.
(upbeat music)
Secret show is basically
a confirmation show
to check the confirmation of the dog.
Make sure the teeth are
correct, the eyes are correct
like we talked about, and
we’re gonna run the dogs.
This particular judge does like to run
so you’re gonna see
switching off of handlers,
and they wanna see the
dog as it’s running,
who’s breaking down, who’s getting tired
’cause these dogs are
supposed to be working dogs.
They should wanna do this,
and they should do it and keep going.
And so, the importance
of this is to make sure
that our dogs are true and
correct before they’re bred.
The breed standard is set
by the ADRK in Germany,
which passes on to the FCI,
and the FCI is the standard
for most of the world.
AKC happens to have their own standard,
which is given by the
American Rottweiler Club.
For example, if you show
a dog in the AKC ring
with a missing tooth,
you can still qualify and win the show
which is in the ADRK or in the FCI ring,
you would be in immediate
disqualifications.
So that’s just one of the
examples of how it’s different.
– Very good front angulation,
very good rear angulation.
That reach and drive is
excellent to see so thank you.
– Yep.
– Yeah.
– There’s many different
aspects of the standard
from the eye color to the head size
and proportion of the head
to muzzle, from the cheeks,
from the fill under the eyes.
And then, it goes down from there
to the neck and shoulder
position, top line and underline.
Front and rear angulations,
is the tail properly carried,
if it has a tail, so there’s
many different aspects
of defines the breed standard.
(upbeat music)
(soft, mellow music)
The breed started way back,
dates all the way back to Roman times.
It’s one of the oldest breeds around,
and the Roman soldiers used to use the,
they’re called Roman Dover Dogs.
And they would actually guard the cattle
and protect the troops
at night when they slept.
They would herd the
cattle along their way.
One of the stops that they made
along the way was Rockwell, Germany.
And they are the Butchers
really liked these dogs,
and they became real friendly
with them and the Butchers
would take a satchel
and wrap it around their
neck and put their money
in there, and that’s
where they would keep it.
And that’s where they got
the name the Butcher Dog.
So yeah, the Rottweiler’s original purpose
was to herd cattle.
It was an original herding dog.
Today, they’re not
probably using them so much
for herding cattle, but some people, yeah.
They are using them for carting.
Today, there’s a lot of
security places that use them.
They’ve been used for law
enforcement, military.
There’s actually still some places
that use them for law enforcement.
A lot of ’em have stopped using them
because the bite force is so hard,
they were actually breaking the arms
instead of just taking down the guys.
And so, but I think
Austria’s still using them.
There’s some states here
in the United States
that I’ve seen that are using them.
I have one guy who’s in the military
that’s using his dog and jumps
out of helicopters and what not.
So they’re still being used.
I think that a lot of
the law enforcement now
are using Malinois and Dutch Shepherd,
which is a lot lighter dog, of course,
to put over your shoulders
when you need to.
(soft, mellow music)
(bright, upbeat music)
So the Rottweiler is an excellent pet.
In fact, most of our
clients are pet homes.
They’re super protective of their family
but yet very social.
They love kids, they love other animals,
and they’re really a low maintenance dog.
They shed maybe twice a year,
and they don’t require
a lot of maintenance.
Type of dog owner that’s
best for this breed,
it really depends on the individual puppy.
If they’re from a litter, for example,
there’ll be some puppies that
are a little bit laid back,
and this pet would be more
suitable for an older individual.
Maybe that somebody who’s not so active,
and then we have some
puppies in the litter
that are just really high drive.
And this would be more
suitable for somebody
that wants to work the puppy,
maybe an IPO or do some protection work
or something like that,
somebody that likes to jog or
is really an active person.
So, it just depends on
the individual puppy,
but they make a great pet.
I have clients that are in their 70’s,
and I have young clients.
The best living situation
for the dog, of course,
is somebody that’s gonna
bring it into the house
and make it a pet and let it live inside
and take it everywhere.
This is my ideal living
situation for one of my dogs,
but I have, again, people
that live in apartments.
If they do this, of course,
they need to get out everyday
and exercise the dog
because the Rottweiler
does require exercise,
or they’ll be chewing some
stuff up, maybe, you know.
So if they’ve got a big yard,
they can get out and throw the ball.
So I can’t say that
there’s an ideal situation
because each person has
their own living situation,
and as long as they take care of the dog
and do what’s proper for the dog,
then I can’t say what’s best.
Most of these, the Rottweilers,
they like to eat, at least mine do.
And if you feed them too much,
they can get fat and obese,
and we don’t want that.
We want to keep them at a
nice, healthy, working weight
where you can see the V in the back.
See the first rib, or at least feel it,
and that’s a common mistake
that a lot people do
is they put too much weight on them,
especially too fast as a puppy.
When they’re growing, we
really wanna keep them
on the thin side because
all the joints and the hips
and everything are still settling,
and if you make them too heavy too fast,
this is bad for the joints.
And so, we really wanna keep
’em at a nice, healthy weight.
They shouldn’t be over 130 pounds,
for a male, 135 pounds, fully grown.
And I’ve heard people, “Oh,
my male is 200 pounds,”
well, this is wrong.
If you look at the breed standard,
should be a maximum of 135 pounds,
female is about 85, 90 pounds, max.
So the expected temperament of this breed
should be a very stable
dog, very clear in the head,
friendly with people, but yet
knows when there’s a problem
and can protect the family and the house
and that’s really important.
And we do what’s called a
re-suitability evaluation
or a ZPT, and we test each one of our dogs
before they’re bred, and in fact,
this is gonna be a requirement next year
for Rottweiler Club North of America,
that they must past this
test before it’s bred,
and it’s also a requirement
in law in Germany.
Before they’re bred,
they have to pass a ZTP.
All of my dogs have this, and that shows
that the dog’s clear in
the head, can protect,
good with people, good with distractions
and a well rounded dog.
So it’s gonna be a ZTP demonstration,
which is, part of it, we’re
gonna show the bite work,
the protection work.
Half of under Vom Haus Burns,
he’s only 15 months old,
he’s still actually too
young to do this test,
but we’re gonna show you some of the work
that’s building up to
the test, and you can see
at this age, what the
level he’s already at.
So it’s very important
to socialize this breed
at a young age to get them used
to people, sounds, noises, distractions.
We highly, highly recommend this.
If you don’t, you maybe
can have some problems as they get older.
(soft, mellow music)
It’s also very important
to train the dogs.
If you don’t, you’re
gonna, before you know it,
you have a 100 pound Rottweiler
that doesn’t know how to sit,
stay, and wants to pull you
through the yard on a leash.
So it’s really important to start early.
At eight weeks old, they’re like a sponge.
They can absorb everything.
We do a lot of our training at that age.
So the breed’s really good
with other dogs, cats,
other animals, chickens, pigs,
and they get along really well with them.
Sometimes, if you’re
introducing a young maybe cat
into the house with the Rottweiler,
it’s gonna take a little time,
but we’ve done it and
have been very successful.
And the cat and the Rottweiler
have been best friends.
So it’s a good dog if you have
other pets or other animals.
The breed has an undercoat,
and they need this in the winter
time for the colder states.
In the summer in California,
you obviously don’t want
this, even in the winter,
but it does have an undercoat.
They tend to shed twice a year,
and you can just rake this out,
give ’em a nice bath and it’s gone.
So the breed’s life expectancy is,
the average is seven to eight years.
However, we have a lot of Rottweilers
that have lived a lot longer then this,
and in fact, I’m involved
in a study group.
And in this group, we have Rottweilers
that are up to 15 years old,
and I just lost one recently
that was 15 years old.
I have one now that’s almost 10,
and it’s really important, food, vitamins,
give it a good healthy
life and keep it youthful.
Play with it and keep it
youthful as it’s getting older.
We found that this is the most important.
It’s just like people,
give them the proper food,
the proper exercise, and
they’ll live a long time.
If you feed ’em junk food
and you do everything wrong,
they’re not gonna probably live very long.
(soft, mellow music)
So some of the known
health problems associated
with the breed, of
course, is hip dysplasia,
and this has gotten a lot
better through the years.
The other one is cancer.
And of course, in large breeds,
this is probably the biggest problem.
Recent one that we started,
it’s actually not recent,
it’s been around for a
very long time, is JLPP.
And this is a disease
if both the mom and dad
are carriers, and they’re bred,
the puppies can get this,
and it causes a lot of
neurological problems.
And they develop not normal,
they don’t walk normal,
and they end up dying really young.
Maybe if they’re lucky, a year old,
and that year’s not good.
So now, it’s another requirement in law,
but in most countries, to test
for this, it’s a DNA test.
A simple cheek swab,
and if mom’s a carrier
and dad’s a carrier, you
don’t breed those dogs.
If one of ’em is a carrier,
that’s okay, you can breed them,
but if they’re both carriers,
it becomes a big problem.
And so, now we’re pushing
this very heavy in USA.
It’s not a requirement, just like nothing
is a requirement in USA, but
all the respectable breeders
are now testing their dogs.
And I’m happy to say all mine
are free of this disease, so.
An exercise for the breed,
we recommend as a puppy,
five minutes of exercise
per day per month of age.
So if they’re eight weeks
old, two months old,
10 minutes at a time and don’t over do it
because we don’t want to stress
out the joints and the hips.
But as they get older, they
require more and more exercise,
and you can be a simple as
putting them on the treadmill,
swim them in the pool, but
they do require exercise
because it is a working dog.
And they got to get rid of this energy.
(soft, mellow music)
For me, I think the Rottweiler
is the best breed around.
I’ve owned other breeds.
I’ve had Chows, I have a
Vanilla French Bulldog,
who thinks he’s a Rottweiler,
and I just think it’s the
best all around breed.
It’s good with the people,
it’s good with kids.
It’ll protect the house.
It’s very, very loving
dog, very affectionate.
They wish they could be
in your lap all the time,
and I couldn’t say more about it.
It’s the best breed.
(soft, mellow music)
