I have a bulldogge that tracks amazingly well, he also has a natural retrieve, we are working on the send out now (training in schutzhund), he's a little under a year and is essentially a renascence bulldog. He has been doing the blind retrieve for quite some time now with very little effort on my part to teach him.
I don't really see how a blind retrieve over a jump is that impressive?
its an obedience behavior that is easily taught to most breeds, natural retrieve or not its easy to teach if the dog doesn't pick it up on its own.
Scent work I can see, some dogs just can't do it. But mine can. I wish I had some videos to show you. Not all intelligent breeds can track well either, we had some mals in our SchH club switch to FR simply because all of their dogs were too hectic on the track and couldn't compete, not saying all mals can't track but the same goes for bulldogges, its the individual dogs temperament mixed with the training styles and abilities of the handler.
We don't see many bulldogges in sport or PPW, but if there were more people out there doing it you would hear more about these dogs I guarantee it.
How is training going with your standard?
One of our helpers breeds giants and tried a standard but he didn't have the drive for it, cute dog though.
Well if you and Matt are getting that kind of performance out of your bullies, more power to you.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Matt is breeding for a general purpose guard dog and selecting for aggression towards people. Which is antithetical to the history of the bully breeds. Traditionally they were selected for gameness and submission to humans, thus making them easy to handle in the pit while willing to fight other dogs.
Any pups showing unwarranted aggression to people would have gotten culled.
So in effect, Matt is selecting for what traditionally would be considered a genetic defect.
My uncles down south would use pits and bully crosses for catch dogs. They werent considered guard dogs at all. The curs would guard against trespassers better than the pits. Curs were generally some kind of herding breed crossed with a hound, no terrier blood.
I'm not breeding game bred APBT's where man aggression in the pit is supposed to be culled for, I'm breeding Olde English Bulldogges the breed standard calls for a dog that should excell at protection work.
Historically the bulldog of old was used for catching & holding semi wild cattle for slaughter and for protecting the butcher's meat. The bulldog orginally decended from mastiff type war dogs, mastiff's obviously have a long history of protection use. The bulldog was later on used for staged fighting it excelled at this as a bi-product of its orginal function.
Some lines of pits defiantly excell at man work, and can be flat out scarry. And yes I am selecting for controlled man aggression more of a social protection bulldog than a guard / sentry dog some are sharp enof for sentry work but most arent.
My dogs typically wont bite people without aggitation to turn the light on, unlike alot of common protection breeds. This thread's intent was to gain other's perspective on selecting for prospective pups for man work, not for promoting my breed or my creations. I could care less about selling pups, in fact I hate the buisness end of breeding dogs I do it because I enjoy it and because I have a passion for it.
Well if you and Matt are getting that kind of performance out of your bullies, more power to you.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Matt is breeding for a general purpose guard dog and selecting for aggression towards people. Which is antithetical to the history of the bully breeds. Traditionally they were selected for gameness and submission to humans, thus making them easy to handle in the pit while willing to fight other dogs.
Any pups showing unwarranted aggression to people would have gotten culled.
So in effect, Matt is selecting for what traditionally would be considered a genetic defect.
My uncles down south would use pits and bully crosses for catch dogs. They werent considered guard dogs at all. The curs would guard against trespassers better than the pits. Curs were generally some kind of herding breed crossed with a hound, no terrier blood.
I'm not selecting for "unwarranted" man aggression.
Yes he does, but not in fear. He enjoys confrontation but too young to really have any fight drive, but if I had to describe it I would label it a fight drive.
I know some people label defense as similar to a fear based drive but that is not what my dog displays, in my eyes anyways. Someone else's eyes might see differently.
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