Kathy's mission
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I'm on a mission to shut this place down....anyone with me???
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<br><br>Wow, I never knew they were that dangerous.(grins)  having owned 6 Filas over the past 15 years and have never had many of the issues that you are suggestion. Before I hear the "must not be a real Fila" bit, 2 of my dogs were shown with 1 having gotten ARBA reserve champion and puppy champion, and our original Fila with ARBA Champion , IABCA International Champion and IABCA National Champion. <font size="6"><font size="4"></font></font><br><br>I do not disagree that all of the issue you brought up can be there and that if you want or are thinking about a Fila, you need to prepare yourself for the more cautious approach.<br><br>But to be honest, I myself would'nt trust the dog after only 3wks. Totally agree with this.<br><br>We had 1 dog that was trained as a service dog and before she was needed as service dog, went with wife to the nursing home where she worked and visited with the patients plus flew on airplane (got us into first class) to Florida and visited a couple of theme parks in orlando no less.. (she did not like lions, could not figure out the apes, and neither knew what to think of her). Our current dog (just put one of our champions down because of being 14 years old. goes to off leash dog parks about once a month and interacts with other dogs and strangers with no issues. I would not of course recommend this for all Filas or even many Filas, some have ojeriza that leans so strong towards agressive of strangers that they cannot be introduced to strangers.<br><br>One of the most important parts of raising a Fila in my opinion is grand amounts of socialization.  If your dog can learn to figure out that stranger does not mean enemy and the difference between friendly, neutral and agressive strangers, you can get so much more out of your friendship.  I have been told in the past that our dogs are not "real filas" because they do not exhibit agressivness towards strangers. I counter that my dogs are well trained enough to react to differences and smart enought to know the difference.<br><br>When our dogs are out in neutral territory (pet stores, parks etc.) they are more aware of what is going on, if they run out to play with other dogs, they will for a few minutes then come back and check on "Mom", However if someone starts moving fast towards family, acting out, being overly loud or agressive postureing or swinging of arms, the dog will and has defended.<br><br>When our dogs were at the house, a whole different story. They take more reads off of you as family then off of strangers, because this is "their " property, they are more defensive. However once they realized we accepted the person, the person was extended family unless they started acting agressivly. Without the initial introduction (commands of Sit, Be Nice and Say Hello) they were not able to get into the door.<br><br>For those that are unaware, ojeriza is "the fila's specific behaviour towards strangers manifested by dislike, distrust, suspiciousness, even hostility, hatred or severe aversion " http://www.fila-brasileiro.biz/pages/sub/47446/Fila_Brasileiro_a_psychological_trait.html"  All Filas are different, and with training and socialization you can modify the behaviour to a certain extent.  <br><br>1. Since this forum is about rescues, expect the animals to come with some baggage. If they dont, so much the better. However it is possibly he will have seemingly unreasonable reactions to benign stimulus (Uniforms, Males, Doorbell, rolled up newspaper, cats,  etc)<br>2. Learn how your dog reacts with their ojeriza. If he is a younger dog, socialize, socialize socialize, if he is an older dog, it can be harder or kinda useless to unlearn and relearn what you want him to. Some dogs are not meant to go to a local pet friendly superstore (insert any of the names here) and be off muzzle, or a dog park and off leash. But knowing what you can and cannot do with him/her is vital to knowing how to safely interact with new circumstances.<br>3. as you are learning his reactions, and he learns yours, my best suggestion, if you can handle it is a dual handle leash. A longer one for "walkies" however another strong handle just a few inches off of the collar to keep him in close. A muzzle might be needed in some cases.<br>4. learn his "tells" hackles up, hair raised up, tail position.  Just because a Fila's tail is wagging does not mean friendly, A stranger walks up to our fence, and ours were barking and tail was wagging, he was "happy" he might have a chance to defend his property.<br>5. When you have kids or visitors to the house, make sure you have a set introduction "pattern" set up and follow it.  For single or a few visitors, we will have him sit, have them come up slowly and tell him be nice (dont growl) and say hello (sniff and that stranger is friendly). we do not let the kids in the house have friends over without introducing them to the dogs a couple of times. After that, in our case, not a problem. We have friends that can come over  and watch the dogs for us, or feed them if we need to be out extended time. But that can take more than just a couple of introductions, but at least several hours over several days of meeting and "bonding"  One thing to note, we have had people that the dog has just not liked.. they usually are not invited over after that. We have tried  a couple of times to get around that and put dogs in a room while they were over, but found out the dogs knew what was going on even if we didn't (1 case they were throwing stuff at dogs in yard when we were not around, other time stuff went missing when they were there)<br>6. Ensure that your dogs know you are Alpha, and so are the rest of the humans to some extent.  Have them sit and you go thru door before them, you eat before they do etc.<br>7. If you are working at training, and he is not getting it, or refusing to do something, understand that big dogs are hard to "force" to do some things, however always end on a positive note even if it is just a sit and stay for a short bit.. so you can "reward" the dog for something positive at the end of the session.<br>8. These dogs are "horses" physically they can deal with pain alot better than smaller or skittish dogs. As was said, the qoted person says he playes 10x harder with kona than he spanks her. totally agreed. I have had to step in to stop spats between 2 of our dogs, and have had to grab handy something to try to get between them, tried to even use a piece of PVC to smack across the meaty part of the hips, the PVC broke (it was in sun for a while so WAS weaker), but the fight stopped, the dog looked, and grabbed the broken piece in mouth and wanted to play keep away. figuring it was the start of a game. This same dog was kicked by a horse, had a hoof print on his side for a while, and you could see the vauge outline where the strike was years later (hair grew slightly off grain) but he wimpered for a couple of minutes, then was out chasing the horse again.  Dont expect to out physical these dogs.. Chuck is correct, in most cases a stern tone is the best thing to make the dog feel like he has failed you. <br>9. In addition to No as a negative word,  have added a reinforcing sound (deep guttural growl) that can be used if  no did not work. <br>10. Until you learn your dog and he learns what is appropriate with you, even to a large extent after that, err on the side of caution.<br>11. P.s. (kinda joking here but not really) if you need to punish your kids, get into shouting match with significate other, or just want to smack the wife around a bit (yeah the joking part) be cautious of doing that around the dog.  You are both family, and can easily stress them out by seeing agression from one family member to another, and if the dog has to chose, you might not like the hospital bills that could come with the choice.<br><br>A great place to look for fila information is http://www.fila-brasileiro.biz but will need to use google translate for alot of the pages unless you read dutch. great information. Some basic, some advanced, but great reading over all.
Is there anyway to make it bigger? I can't read it.
Hi everyone, I am new to this group: oddly enough, I just joined this group after getting a dog from them: (my avitar) Atticus. I went through all the complaints and freaked out as you all can imagine. So I did some research, checked the story of where the dog came from: Pasadena shelter (which was true and verified) the dog was on the kill list (I searched the number from the adoption, there was a listing of him from the shelter - plea in risk of euthanasia and noted that the dog had been adopted by a rescue group in California - which she said he came from a rescue after the shelter in California). She said the dog was labeled as 10 years at the shelter, but when they got him up to Washington they could tell he was much younger 2 or 3 maybe and is acting like an untrained puppy. (He is an emaciated Neo) which the rescue group vet confirmed was inaccurate. He is indeed the dog listed in the Pasadena Humane Society photos, I can verify that but his markings (that state he is 10-yrs) I can see where they could have made the mistake, he is emaciated and a blue. I confirmed his age, with my vet: as being 3 years old tops based on teeth. Now home he is really puppyish. Hoping around and goofy as heck. Plus a neo at 10 is pretty rare. His skin and fur is really looking amazing even this soon. I registered the chip (that worked out) fine.. She told me was emaciated, not-trained, but had a great temperament, she said he was not interested in food really (all true) He has put on 10lbs since being at my house (he does have a food issue, he will not eat unless he is sitting next to a family member, even behind a gate he will not eat) but he really enjoys the diet I have him on: pasta, meats, quality kibble and is a pig so long as someone is around. He is starting to do well in potty training and is learning to walk well on a leash (i can now walk him with my other dogs). He does have a fantastic temperament and is very calm and is very good with my other two dogs. We adore this dog, so when I read through all the complaints it was very alarming. The dog is better than Rising Phoenix Mastiff Rescue described. They did get back to me timely and even met me 1/2 between the two of us, I told her I was not going to pay for gas, that I would come get him and she agreed to meet me in Portland. She was very knowledgeable about the dog, and we sat and talked for about 1-hour about rescue and this dog.. If she is making money off the dogs, I do not see how. Maybe I just got extremely lucky, I am not sure.. but I did have a very good experience. He is fantastic, better than described. I paid 450.00 which I do not mind paying. If anyone has questions, please feel free to contact me. I hope this helps.
