q&A ӕQԆYGKЕGӖ Recently, I was walking my puppy in a feed store. She was a result of my seventh generation of breeding. A love- ly couple approached me and enthusiastically asked, “Is this a Rottweiler? She is beautiful!” I confirmed. The hus- band said to me, “We have a half-Rottweiler half-Beagle mix.” And the wife exclaimed, “She looks EXACTLY like your dog!” And I smiled and thanked them for their kind words and also for the reminder that beauty truly does lie in the eyes of the beholder, even the eyes of the breeder judge at your (and my) next show—and additionally, that most dogs exhibited have at least one fan outside of the ring to whom they are the most beautiful in the show—a good position for a dog to assume as he heads home for the evening!
mouth, dark almond eyes and beautiful neck flowing into a level back. Now, the true test—can it move? Rottweilers are working dogs and if they can’t move, there is a problem somewhere. 2. What shortcomings are you most willing to forgive? What faults do you find hard to overlook? I can forgive cosmetic issues over structure. It take several breedings to fix structure; but color—clear, clean mark- ings and deeper mahogany—may be fixed in one breed- ing. The key there is word is “may.” Poor movement and bad top lines when moving are the hardest to overlook. 3. How has the breed changed since you became involved with it? Do you see any trends you think are moving the breed in the wrong direction? Any traits becoming exaggerated? The thing is that the standard has not changed here in the US. When you read the standard it states what the dogs should look like. I hear people saying, “But I don’t like that.” We are losing our shoulder lay back and getting too much angulation in the rear. The standard states, “Angula- tion of hindquarters balances that of the forequarters.” What is moving the breed in the wrong direction is there is no direction. The idea now is that if they finish, they can be bred. I used a colored stick drawing of my pedigrees so I could see what I needed to improve on and what is strong in my pedigrees. The rule in my kennel is, if there are 3 things I don’t like about the dog/bitch, I usually spay/neuter them and they go to a wonderful home. I was told very early on that I could be a collector or a breeder, but not both. 4. How do you feel about undocked tails? Standard states tail docked short, close to the body, leav- ing 1-2 vertebrae. I was lucky when I was judging and had only one situation with a tailed dog. I think we, as a National club, have put judges in a bad spot. I watched a situation a few years ago where the tailed dog was much better than the docked dog so one day the tailed dog was put up and the other day the docked dog was put up. As I said before, structure and breed type are most important to me but as long as I can own a docked dog, I will. 5. Why do we mostly see dogs (as opposed to bitches) in the top ranked Rottweilers? Trying to rank a bitch is a very, very hard job—my daugh- ter and I found that out. I think it is because there is such a big difference is size in the females as opposed to the males. All breeds have different size, but it seems that Rotts are more of the extreme. A Great Dane, Doberman, Bullmastiff or Akita male and female are closer in size than the Rottweiler’s male and female. Our society has the idea that bigger is always better, even though if may not be. 6. Is there anything Rottweiler handlers do you wish they would not? I wish the handlers would train the dogs they are show- ing better and teach them to show their bites. I have been embarrassed watching dogs being shown that were not showing well and the judge had so much trouble seeing teeth. Many judges don’t like judging Rotts or are afraid
ELEANOR JACK SON
We moved to Palatine, IL in 1971 and a friend of mine had Rottwei- lers. I loved the way they looked and acted and decided I wanted one. I liked them because they were different and there were not very many of them. This was my first and soon thereaf- ter I got a female from her. I tried breeding her and never got a litter. Both dogs had
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good pedigrees, but I had no idea what I was doing. I decided to place the female and I found a gentleman who had just gotten divorced and he wanted, “A bitch that would never leave him.” She was spayed and off they went. Our kennel name is half of my maiden, Kinley and half of my married name Jackson—so you get Kinjack. I bought a bitch from Sherri Page and Catherine Thompson and she was my foundation bitch. Her name was Tobant’s Hai- ley’s Comet. I think the highlight of my breeding career was winning Grand Prize Futurity at the National in 2010 with “Elsa”, a bitch sired by Ice and shown by myself. She went on to winners bitch that year and in 2013 RBIS, BISS, BOSS SGGH Kinjack’s Back to the Future CD RE THD CS was number 1 bitch in All-Breed competition and Select bitch at Westminster in 2014. 1. What five traits do you look for, in order, when judging Rottweilers? What do you consider the ulti- mate hallmark of the breed? I look for a dog that gives me goose bumps like the dog on the Illustrated Standard of the American Rottweiler breed guide. The dog must have four straight feet, correct
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