Why Rottweiler and Standard Poodle?

(Above: Tucker, the sire, in his back yard).

A few minutes ago I was at Yahoo's dog site and I filled out Purina's dog finder. My top purebreed was a Malinois (too active for me in real life) but the finder said that although it was not hypoallergenic, it was high in learning rate and a great guard dog. The finder also listed Giant Schnauzers and Kerry Blue Terriers (two breeds I love) but indicated that, while they have good guarding temperaments, they are not easily obedient. The Standard Poodle was obedient, smart and hypoallergenic, but not really a guard dog.

You can guess, I have thought about this a lot, and I really did not need the "dog finder" to realize that my ideals in a dog are that it is highly obedient, easily trainable, guarding and hypoallergenic. I thought about crossbreeding the Standard Poodle with a German Shepherd, but I decided on the Rottweiler instead, with its powerful build and Schutzhund background. A well bred GSD would not have been a bad choice, I just think the Rottie is one step better, and we can already see the "beefy" build in some (actually most) of this litter.

The Rottie, the Poodle and the GSD are all in the top 10 in "dog breed intelligence" (see the link to check out 79 breeds, from wimpy little dumb dogs like the Shih Tzu, to the brainiacs of the dog world, like our dogs.) It just seems to me, why have a hard-to-train dog when you can have an easy-to-train dog? The worst ranking breeds were rated like this: Understanding of New Commands: 80 to 100 repetitions or more.

Meanwhile the Rottie, Poodle and eight others were rated like this:Understanding of New Commands: Less than 5 repetitions. Now, these tests were performed by experienced trainers and your "results may vary", but the difference in learning ability (and willingness to comply) among breeds is truly vast.