It is a popular belief that the GSD is probably the most versatile breed of all time. At one time (before PETA, HSUS, and the Media)that reputation was shared with the America Pit Bull Terrier, I believe rightly so. So why can't the first cousin of the APBT get a little respect? Why isn't the American Bulldog thought of as one of the most trainable dogs breeds?

Well you have to win some titles, and a few competitions, maybe have a job or two. No, not catching hogs in the boondocks, or protecting the farmhouse, you need a job in the city. But most sport titles or breed certifications rely on very prey driven dogs, dogs that react from drive rather than think about what should be done. Dogs that can easily be put into prey drive and then patterned into the same behavior. Unfortunately for an AB their parents rarely found wild boars that would stick to one pattern. And if they couldn't think on their feet, or in the middle of the fight, they might never be parents. An AB will think and then decide, if it is right to throw, what is usually considerable size and power, into the scenario.

Most of the trainers you would go to to train your AB or even other mastiffs will classify themselves as a SChH or a Ring or a _ U fill in the blank, trainer. Only a few will ever classify themselves as a 'dog' trainer, and that would be right. So when they have a thinking dog that is not patterned into a 'ritual' way of doing things they seem to come up with statements like, "We all know you can't get a bulldog to bark." or "Bulldogs won't out." So what happened at the K9PS show?

It seems Ryan Watson came up from Austin with a SchH reject AB named Bruce. Bruce didn't know he was a reject and he also didn't know that "Bulldogs don't bark." When he was alerted in the Civil Agitation portion of the Training Division this dog got loud. Now to be accurate you might not call it a bark, it was much more serious.
This dog was everything you could want in PP but I can see where he might not be SchH material, with only a sleeve and some thin little scratch pants for the helper, it is not the dog that would be losing that courage test.

In the PP division Mary Ann Moorehead had a an AB she calls Newman, with one whole week of PP training the dog had no problem protecting, but she worried about doing her first send and out from a distance, so she thought the training div was for her also, but she changed her mind.

In the PP division the dog was doing good as the Courage Test came around. No one doubted the dog would charge to the end of the field to protect Mary Ann, but the bets were rolling on how many people it would take to drag the dog off of Tim Steagalls body after an earthquaking hit.

The moment of truth, as the steward gave Mary Ann the signal to call her dog back. "Newman out!" no way, "Newman OUT!!" and the Bulldog OUTED! Now I'm not saying he went charging back to Mary Ann, he did actually circle the decoy several times, he tried a few head butts, one or two little fang slashes, several times stuck his nose up the decoys sleeve to get just a little fresh meat, but he OUTED, then he recalled to his partner.

Now it wasn't a clean out, it was certainly not a SchH out, but it was an effective, get the job done, out. It did not get Newman first place, that was again a GSD, Cassie, handled by Paulette Schrapp. But the ABs' definitely do PP work and we think we will be seeing a few more of them, we are sure, we know of two that we will be seeing on the winners podium in the future after all this ain't your mama's 'sport' stuff.

Listen Well, Bite Hard!!!

nm

Several AB owners "poked their heads out of the backwoods" when Ryan did his thing. To make it more interesting and bring more of us out, lets add a twist ... tackle and tie Tim next time, as a timed event. PETA doesn't care about humans!