Any EM owners have experience with owning rottweilers?

[rangermom]

I'm wondering what your experiences with the two breeds are like. Are they similar at all?

I have a 6 year old male rottweiler-which I will admit, aside from my kids, he is the love of my life! We are also getting our first EM pup in May!

From what I have read about mastiffs they seem to have similar qualities to rotties. Loyalty, devotion to family, bonding, guard dog qualities etc. I kind of peg Mastiffs as being a larger, slobbery, more relaxed version of rotts.

Then, I just read that rottweiler is rated in the top ten most intelligent dogs, (not at all surprised ); but mastiffs are rated in the top ten least intelligent dogs. I was shocked, I always assumed they were very intelligent dogs. I just watched one of my breeders pups open up the swinging door to the puppy pen to play with them. Seemed like some high level thinking going on there and she was only 10 weeks old.

 

[Smokeycat]

I can't help with the Rottweiler part of your question but one thing I have read about the ' intelligence' rankings is that they actually go by trainability or how fast the breed picks up and follows commands. This means many of the breeds that were originally bred to work independently rank low. My EM is stubborn. He will think about it before he follows thru.

 

[alwcm4]

What I've found is that alot of the breeds deemed "unintelligent" are breeds that have been bred to think for themselves. Many breeds we think of as "obedience" type dogs only respond when given a command. Dogs like Mastiffs were not bred to take commands, they were bred to act on their own instincts. Alot of your higher strung breeds are the ones deemed intelligent, however without strong obedience training and tons of attention they end up with behavioural issues.

 

[Theminblack]

What I've found is that alot of the breeds deemed "unintelligent" are breeds that have been bred to think for themselves. Many breeds we think of as "obedience" type dogs only respond when given a command. Dogs like Mastiffs were not bred to take commands, they were bred to act on their own instincts. Alot of your higher strung breeds are the ones deemed intelligent, however without strong obedience training and tons of attention they end up with behavioural issues.

^This. My Bullmastiff is what I consider, very intelligent. They're thinking dogs though. They don't always take everything at face value, and can be stubborn if they don't have a good training foundation. I like that about my Mastiffs.

 

[Robtouw]

I owned a rotti that I adopted from Czechlovakia for 17 years. Rollie was loyal, one person bonded but also obeyed my spouse, extremely territorial, very protective, super intelligent, eager to please and very mature, my sister's American Rotti was the polar opposite, cute and sweet but dumb as a box of rocks!

My em boys have all been big loveable goofs. Smart, cautious, gentle, playfull, eager to please as a pup, and sometimes protective. Both my em's and my rotti were super spoiled, Cruiser was easier to train as a pup, Rollie went to school in Germany for a year, czec trained with the police dept in Griesheim and finished with protectives in Seattle, Wa. All of my em boys esp. Cruiser, has to be reminded often of their expected manners, Rollie automatically responded to my signals.

I think in the affection category they are similar, in protectiveness my Rotti, companionship-both, intelligence-rotti, with people-em's, my rotti made it clear he tolerated other people and was friendly and respectful but I was his primary charge. Rollie was easier to travel with due to his compact size. Buddy, em, was my most loving boy, I think of him often and miss him terribly!

 

[kbuchanan66]

I have a Rott/Mastiff who is 11 months. I can tell you that I have been doing A LOT of research since I got him because I did not know what type of Mastiff his father was (Now I believe him to be Tosa Inu) Anyways back to it... Barron most definitely has the trainability of the Rott took him nothing to learn a new trick and follows commands pretty much to the T however I find he is a very Vocally Corrected dog(which comes from the Mastiff). If he does not follow a command I can drop my voice into a more serious tone and he will do it immediately. As well like a mastiff any physical correction(not hitting, just like pushing on his hind end to get him to sit or trying to pull him in a direction) he will shut down or become stubborn like a mastiff Basically he DEMANDS respect and you are going to get nothing if you man handle him. I call him my little problem solver(Independent thinking at its finest) at 8 weeks old he figured out he can throw his treat ball down the stairs and everything comes out, He can pin a bone against a wall so it does not slip out of his paws, he can open doors(without ever being shown), when he was little we had a baby gate to keep him in the bathroom at night to sleep and he actually learned how to release it so it fell to the ground.

 

[rangermom]

my sister's American Rotti

Totally not the point, but just FYI, a rott is a rott. There's no German or American rott. They have the same standards and should look the same unless they are bred poorly, which we all know happens. They are all rottweilers, unless of course, you are referring to their place of birth. Sorry, I will now get off my soap box.

 

[jenypri]

They are quiet similiar in personality where in they both are Courageous, Mastiffs tend to be more vocal in their protection where rotties can be a little of both. I found that Rotties were less loyal than mastiffs to a whole family, they tend to lean more toward one person. I find that mastiffs are better with children than rotties and I had found some rotties to be dog aggressive where mastiffs are fairly submissive dogs.
Every dog is different so its hard to compare then, because where one dog does one then, the other might not.
Giant breeds are pretty much in a class all their own!

 

[DMikeM]

I don't know if my situation counts. I have 2 Rottweiler Chow mixed dogs and a Boerboel. The RottenChows only bark if it is something serious or the Boerboel barks first. Maybe that's Chow. But for temperament they are very similar guard the home protect the property. Both learn well but the Boerboel is stubborn where the RCs are not. Both are keyed to the type of voice you use one them though. Serious voice is always obeyed, relaxed voice they might or might not ignore. My old Doberman would obey at any voice level, that's totally different.

 

[DennasMom]

We had a Rott/GSD/Pyrenees mix (our best guess, anyway). 190lbs of guard dog. He was laid back, easy to train, never a problem. Never chewed on anything he wasn't given first (except for one lamp cord when he was 2 months old). Maybe it's my memory (that was ~20 years ago), but he was a perfect dog. He was "the ref" at the dog park - jumping in the middle of any scuffles to scatter the participants... he'd just stand there, expecting to be obeyed by the other dogs... and he was. It was funny to watch.

Our last dog was a Dane/Lab mix - leaning toward the lab personality, and we decided to go back to the giant breed EM for the laid back-ness. And Denna is that, for sure. But, she is also definitely independent and while she learns commands fast and is very smart, she will "demand respect" as kbuch. put it.

So, I see lots of similarities in our rottX and the EM. The variances could easily be due to a different dog, different gender, and/or different breed, and also the fact (I hope) that we're smarter dog parents now, too.

 

[rangermom]

The variances could easily be due to a different dog, different gender, and/or different breed, and also the fact (I hope) that we're smarter dog parents now, too.

Absolutely agree with you there!

Our first dog together was a lab. Hyper til he was 7, ill behaved, and absolutely no loyalty toward me at all.
I oftentimes say that I will never have another lab b/c they are crazy. But in reality, it might just be that I was a young and inexperienced dog owner. It has been my dominant rott that has taught me everything about dogs.......purely out of necessity, lol.

 

[Laurie]

My rottie was very protective of me. My EM so far is a big wimpy scaredy cat.(only 10 months old). Both have been in obedience classes..