Hip and elbow testing

[Johan Swart]

Whilst I am a firm believer in testing the hip and elbow status of Boerboels, I believe this matter should be viewed in context. I just got the results back of three dogs I had tested. Two of the dogs, both bought in to ensure continued diversity in my breeding program, did not meet the standard I require and will be spayed / neutered and rehomed. The third dog, Linjo Squeeza, got excellent results with 0:0 elbows and 0:0 hips. This however caused me to contemplate the emphasis on hips and elbows.

In my mind the Boerboel should have 3 major characteristics being sound temperament, sound health and good conformation. Too many breeders are advertising their dogs' appraisal scores and / or hip and elbow results only and chose to forget the other factors. A dog with excellent hips and an unacceptable temperament is useless. So is a dog that has excellent hips and a good temperament but does not meet conformation standards. A high score and a pretty picture also tells nothing about the health or temperament of the dog.

Granted, there are a few super-salesmen in the Boerboel world but I believe that we should start taking the "selling" away from the gift of the gab and base it on actual results.

I believe that an independant buyers' schedule should be started somewhere to which breeders can submit information in 5 different catagories being Conformation (Appraisal score), Health (Hips, elbows, eyes, VH, litter size, etc), Temperament (Results from a standardised temperament test), Other achievements (Show winners, working ability, specialised training, etc) and General (Location of breeder, price range, kennel practices, etc).

To then reflect an overall picture of the total dog requires a simple mathematical equation and a result that is interpretable by even the novice buyer.

Those breeders that do send in their dogs' results will be reflected on the system and will attract buyers. Those breeders that take greater trouble in testing and exposing their dogs will get higher scores.

I just think it is an idea that will put the brakes on the current "website" buying of boerboels that disappoint later.

Johan Swart

[Phil Harris]

I like this idea. I also like to hear that you have a couple of dogs that do not meet standards, they are being spayed/neutered and rehomed. I am glad to hear you share this. I know that in my area there are a couple of breeders. One of them will on occaision sell a neutered/spayed adolescent dog. Folks in the know no what this means, he is keeping his breeding stock diverse with good integrity. 

I am a huge supporter of temperament testing. Some folks who are against this are ingnorant of dog character and just don't understand working dogs and giant breeds. With all the inbreeding/line breeding that has gone on, combined with the very small starting gene pool of the BB there is a potential for dogs with bad character. I also am a dog trainer. Too often I see breeders, who are simply farming dogs. BBs are not cattle. They crave leadership and training. I would not buy a dog from anyone who could not exhibit good control of their dogs. 

There is an old saying "beauty is only skin deep" I think as a group of dog lovers and BB enthusiast we must remember that looks, while important, are only part of the equation for overall dog picture. 

[Johan Swart]

Thanks for the support Phil. I am a member of the Boerboel Breed council and Im trying hard to get the idea of the "overall picture" accepted.

[Midhad]

I support the idea very much so as well. Is there anything we as the members of EBBASA can do to help to promote this? I believe that the health and temperament are the most important traits we have to pay special attention to. Without these two, nothing else matters. The health is very easy to explain and test, but when it comes to temperament it is a different story. Different people have different ideas about it. I would like to see an explanation from experienced breeders on what we should aim for when it comes to the boerboel temperament. I know it is very hard for us to make any change  because it is a few small honest breeders vs expert sales men who run boerboel factories.

[Johan Swart]

The Boerboel Breed Council has started on the discussion of a standardised temperament test for the breed. Whilst most of us have seen the Rottweiler and other breed tests utilised, the members steered away from just using another Breed's test. We started from the basics again and first drew up a list of what the temperament of a Boerboel should be. At the forthcoming meeting we should get proposals on how to test each aspect which will then be considered and tried in practice. I personally use the PAT (Puppy Aptitude Test) on all my puppies before I allow them to be allocated to owners and I would love to see a custom designed test for the Boerboel.

The temperament test should then be followed by tests for working dogs, protection dogs, etc........so, we are a long way from having all the answers but we are working on it. Everybody must just hold thumbs that we will manage to retain the buy-in of all the Boerboel Associations in this process.

[Cornelia]

Hallo

Ich bin kein Züchter, habe aber großes Interesse an diesem Thema.

Ein Boerboel muß ein angemessenes Temperament habe genauso wie gute Hüften und ED frei sein.

Das ist alles gleichwertig zu sehen. Was habe ich von Super Pennhipwerten wenn mein Hund kein freies Wesen hat ?!?

Ich habe 2 BBs und die sind sehr unterschiedlich vom Charakter. Das macht es für mich immer spannend zu sehen wie sie sich verhalten.

Bei der SABT Bewertung in Spreenhagen ( Deutschland) konnte jeder BB Besitzer seine Hunde einem Verhaltenstest unterziehen. Die Überprüferin hat wenig ausgelassen und ich fand es klasse. Nur so weis ich woran ich mit den beiden bin. Sie haben aber beide diesen Test gut bestanden. Das Verhalten der Hunde muß unbedingt stärker in der Zucht berücksichtigt werden !!!

Sonst wird es wohlmöglich bald die nächste gelistete Hunderasse werden und ist damit in einigen Ländern verboten.

Conny

[Bobby Jones]

While I agree with everyting you said here there is an exeption to every case. While looking for a stud for my female I selected 100 boerboels fron the world. I decided to limit the search to the U.S.A. this brought me down to 30 or so boerboel. I then used certain methods of filtering out and came down to just 5 boerboel. 2 of the boerboel I was looking at were owned by individual's 3 were owned by breeders. I looked up and called all 5 owners and researched the boerboel. I discovered that 3 out of the 5 were fathered by the same daddy. None of those 3 were for sale so I lookedup to find daddy and he was not to be found. Finnaly I went to the SABT and still could not find this boerboel. Then upon pure luck a friend came over to help me find the boerboel I was looking for and it turned out her step daddy owned him. I went out of my way to purchase this boerboel because he was only 4 years old. At first he was not for sale but it turns out the boerboel got into some spotted mushrooms and became insainly crazy and deadly violent. I decided since this would wear off (the owner did not know this) to purchase the boerboel. I then found out this boerboel was trained for hunting and fighting. This boerboel was like no other dog I had ever seen before because he had only knew these things and never had been shown love or how to behave. To calm the dog down somewhat took me 3 months. I was then able to start working on showing him love and how to behave, not to kill everything in sight, This was first done with personal work and then the resocialization started. I used a horse introduced the 2 through a 6 inch fence panel because while this boerboel could put his jaws through the fence he could not open his jaws to grab the horse. The horse would lick the boerboel and so on. Then we got a 1 year old steer and he never to this day has tried to take down the steer as he would have when we first purchased him. I trained this boerboel and was right, even though this boerboel was made super aggressive it was never in his nature! but then I knew this via his 3 sons that I had came accross when searching for a stud boerboel in the begining, they all had super temperments. Now while this boerboel is tamed down and trained, he also minds me very well and this was accomplished through respect gained through great treament and handeling of this boerboel. This boerboel does not know how to play with other dogs and can never be allowed to do so simply because of the possible outcome. Now even though this boerboel has been through a lot and his temperment is not 100% all of his puppies are 100% in there temperments with all the ability of a top hunting boerboel, and very smart as well. It would be a shame for this boerboel not to be bred simply because of his attitude of having to be the top Alpha dog. More so than a normal boerboel he was taught to be the top Alpha dog and has to be handled by an expert who knows what he is doing and not by any average dog person. I decided since he has a super high pedigree and he is not aggresive by nature, puts out super pup's that I am going to breed him. Now, all this being said, Normaly I would not breed any boerboel with such an aggressive nature as you decribe.

[Johan Swart]

Hi Bobby,

I have also reabilitated dogs that were raised incorrectly or abused. If the base temperament of a dog is good, it is mostly salvageable. If it was born from a genetic line with bad temperaments it will stay an aggressive or fearful dog irrespective of what the owner tries. The proposed testing of temperament also includes the assessment of control, sanity, return to a normal state, attitude towards other dogs, attitude to strangers and other factors. The intention is not to disqualify all dogs with slight flaws but to systematically remove the really bad ones from the gene pool.

Johan

[Bobby Jones]

I understand, and again, I agree with this idea... Bad temperments should not be bred if it is in the nature of the dog.