Humans and the Rottweiler

by Nithin
(Bangalore, India)

We brought home Fabulous Balboa in September 2012. As it has turned out, it was one of the most important, (positively) life-changing decisions of our life as a family.

As one could imagine, the decision to have a Rottweiler for protection is met with endless skepticism from the "well-wishers". Why, even a vet told us the Rottweiler is not for a household with a young child.

We don't live in an apartment, so I suppose that too augured well for a large dog.

One of our friends helped us make the decision by telling us his experiences and stories of close bonding with his Rottweiler. Fabulous eventually only bettered those stories, perhaps because of the first hand Rottweiler experience he gave us.

One other friend helped us find the right puppy born of parents with the right temperament and lineage. For the record, Fabulous comes from a Champion pedigree of Bronko Van Hasan Hause.

His induction into the family has been so effortless! We were sure to keep him inside the house at all times - so no dog house for him, the entire house was to be his.

He toilet trained himself in less than 2 months. Sometimes when the walk gets delayed, he lets us know by whining (and not by aggressively barking and lunging). We let him out, he does his thing and he waits for the walk. Perhaps that self-restraint and discipline is what has forged a hitherto unbroken bond of commitment between us.

I am very regular with my eat and sleep timings; and I respect that in his case as well. One look from him saying "Can we please go now?" and I put everything aside and take him out.

He lives with us as one of us. He makes no bones about conveying it to us and neither do we.

The one person he is most respectful of in our home is my 5 year old daughter. She pounces upon him, is all over him in play and he soaks it all up. Never once did he react adversely to her so-called invasion of his space. We have several times reminded her that she needs to reciprocate the restraint he shows. She has understood that as she grew older; we are glad that it is love-all now.

There may be many sources where the bad stories of the Rottweiler came from, but I can tell you with certainty that I count the years I lived with the Rottweiler as the most fulfilling. His unconditional, unceasing love has had such a heady and over-powering effect on our lives.

Not that a Boxer or an German Shepherd wont give you that, but this is to shout out to everyone about the Rottweiler and how he loved us all perhaps more than he loved himself.

To summarize, he is a blessing for us.