Philippines Rottweiler

I bought a Rottweiler puppy on May 9, 2007, last Wednesday, from a buddy of mine, Guus Ellenkamp, an ex-pat Dutchman, who is living here in Cagayan de Oro, and running a business very similar to my own, in concept, though much smaller (so far).

Guus lives at The Malasag House, Which is on the same moutainside as Eco Village. Guus’ house has the best view of the Macajalar Bay that I have ever seen.

Marissa has decided to name the puppy “Thumper”. He was the pick of the litter.

I bought my first Rottweiler in 1984 and paid $1000 for him. His dame had been imported from Germany pregnant. Both his parents where national champions in Germany. I named him Solitude von Buckweiler, and I called him simply “Buck” or “Buckshot”. He was the greatest dog I ever had, and I miss him deeply.

This pup I have here was also the pick of the litter. He had the largest head, and was the most distinctive of all the pups. He was the first one out of the litter box to go exploring on his own, and Guus found him out and about all over the Malasag House grounds. I expect great things from this dog. He cost me PHP 10,000 (about $205 USD), without papers. He’ll probably end up being neutered if I don’t get papers on him.

He’ll get plenty of socialization at my house. We have eleven people staying in this house, counting Mama and Papa (Marissa’s parents), three brothers (Marvin, Ryan, and Jojo), Ryan’s wife Charis, Ryan’s two children Anfernee and Alexandra, JoAnn our housekeeper, my two full-time live in PNP bodyguards (there are actually three of them, they work 10 days on and five days off, on a rotating basis).

Thumper’s personality is pretty laid back. Typical of a Rott. Anferee can be pulling on his ears and he’ll just yawn. Anferee is six years old and Alexandra is 6 months old. I’m glad to be raising Thumper around kids. By the time my own first child is born, somewhere around January 8, 2008, Thumper will be well-accustomed to young children. That’s right, Marissa’s pregnant, by a little more than three weeks.

Anyway, back to the dog. Thumper will live in a pretty much trouble-free evironment where he’ll be considered to do no wrong until he begins training at six-months. Of course he’ll receive some corrections for chewing shoes or furniture from now to then, but for the most part, he’ll be encouraged to have a full-puppyhood, without a lot of rules thrown at him.

At six months Thumper’s life will be turned upside down. I’m a big believer in the Koehler Method of Dog Training. I trained Buckshot using the Koehler Method, and he turned out wonderfully. I could take him anywhere without a leash, and no matter what the situation he never got out of my control. He would refuse food from stangers, and no one ever asked, “is that your dog”. You only needed to see the two of us together to know who the master was, it was very obvious. Buck could vocalize too, on two levels. One a friendly bark, and the other a warning growl, both on command.

One day back in the mid-80’s I was driving my Dodge Ram 4×4 short bed pickup, with Buckshot in the bed. It had been raining for days and a lot of the backroads were washed out. I had traveled about 1/4 mile down a clay-dirt road in North Florida and was about 100 feet away from pavement when another pickup truck entered the dirt road. The sides of the road were washed out and slick. The pickup had six black men in it (but for all intents and purposes their color was not important, they might have well been six pink-skinned rednecks). Our trucks came nose to nose and one of the men got out and told me to back up. Please note I had a shotgun and 30-06 hunting rifle on the rear window gun rack, plus a 4′ construction level, and a Colt semi-automatic AR-7 on the dash. I looked at the man for a moment and paused, smiled. Then I said, “Buckshot, warning!” and Buck, who had been laying in the bed unobserved jumped up on the rail and let loose a terrible volley of vicious barks and growls. I could smell the shit-in-the-pants almost instantly. The kind fellow ran back to the pickup he had been traveling in and they backed up to the asphault. The display of guns meant nothing to them. In that neck of the woods everyone had guns like that. But few had dogs like that.

Solitude von Buckweiler, rest in peace. I love you still.

Thumper, you’re goinig to be a great dog one day, a dog Buck would be proud of.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Dogs, Philippines Expat Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.