Cartersmum

I saw this in my Facebook feed as we live in The Hills District: http://www.hillsnews.com.au/story/1716478/rangers-will-be-given-power-to-remove-menacing-dogs/?cs=12 How are they going to identify a menacing dog? As a Rottweiler owner (the gorgeous Carter) I am concerned this will tar all dogs with the same brush. I was walking Carter last year with my sister (who was 9 at the time) and a lady approached me in a park and told me that "it was irresponsible of me to have a menacing dog breed with children around" Safe to say I ignored her. What are your thoughts?

A face only a mother could love.....

Thanks to everyone for their advice on Carter – I am more thankful that the thread turned into a Rottweiler appreciation thread! Carter has been doing well recently. We have been working on voice control to which he seems to be responding too (even though it is early days) We have also noticed in the last few weeks he has become a lot more protective of me and the house in general. He used to be scared of crashing noises (such as if the back door slams) now he will bark and go and investigate, he is also realising that the vacuum and plastic bags have no vendetta against him….. :laugh: I have also been taking him to a dog park where big and little dogs are separated and he is behaving like an angel! This is a good place to try the voice control when distractions are around as that seemed to be his Achilles heel. This whole thing must have been fate as in that dog park we met his half sister! It was very strange seeing them play together and interact, it’s almost like they knew they had the same mum. It’s his birthday on Thursday so I am making him a cake and have added a wonderful picture of him fast asleep on my lap after a voice control session – obviously was too much for him!

His favourite pose - letting it all hang out

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Trying to change the way this conversation is going!!!!

another pic

Thanks for all your advice. I will not be taking him to a park until this is resolved and I am going to work hard! As requested some shots of my beautiful boy!

Thanks for the advice. Any ideas on why this has started happening? he never had an issue before.

Carter is a 3 year old, desexed male Rottweiler whom I love dearly. We socialised him early and he has a lovely temperament - no problems interacting with humans or dogs, but recently we noticed a change. When taking him to the local dog park he started chasing a Pug and had to be pulled away, the lady was a little upset and I explained Carter had never done that before. Last week we went to another dog park (we go there every week) and he had another go at a Pug! Today I took him to the park and he started again on a little Chihuahua. From observing he approaches the little dogs for a sniff but the little dogs react to him and he reacts back, he runs around chasing them and tries to bit them (softly as he has never drawn blood) but he never growls. He is very obedient but it seems when we are at the dog park he gets distracted and doesn't respond to voice commands - he also isn't motivated by food so is proving tricky to train. I want to do some training with him to change this so does anyone have advice?

I have just seen something awful and I cannot get it out of my head. I was out walking Carter, my Rottweiler in Seven Hills, NSW. I was walking through the reserve when I saw a man on a bike going up the hill with 2 dogs offleash. As we got closer to the road the dog that I thought was with him came running down the hill as we crossed the road to the middle section. This dog (looked like a Staffy/Pit Bull ran across the road to my dog, I tried to find a collar but he wasn't wearing one and there was no owner around. He had a sniff of my dog and then ran across the road again and then got hit by a car. It was awful, he was crying and obviously in pain. The driver stopped and so did a few runners but the dog limped away quite fast (this road is incredibly busy at peak time) I tried to find him and asked a few people down the road but they hadn't seen anything. I feel so awful, I cried my eyes out - he didn't even have a collar to grab him :-(