Posts tagged "rottweiler"

It's hard to overstate this kitten's bravery. It's what, 8 weeks old or so? It'd be brave to stand up to a Yorkie, let alone an angry Rottweiler, a breed that--when it's snarling and snapping and pulling at its chain like that--could make a crown man wet his pants. But the kitten not only stands its ground, it even charges the big dog once or twice! Luckily, Bowser is all bark and no bite (literally). He doesn't seem truly angry or aggressive--he's not interested in harming the little guy--but he's probably frustrated by his inability to intimidate even a wee little kitten. Luckily, both animals walk away from the confrontation unscathed.

Canine parvovirus, commonly called parvo, is a serious and potentially deadly affliction for household dogs. As part of a Paw Nation series providing background about the medical problems your pet may suffer, we spoke with Dr. Craig Blair, owner-operator of the Clays Mill Veterinary Clinic in Lexington, Ky., to get some insights about the condition.

What are the signs that my dog has parvo?
Signs of parvo include lethargy, loss of appetite, vomiting, and diarrhea. It's most often seen in puppies less than 6 months old. The diarrhea is often bloody and very foul-smelling, which are good indicators the dog has parvo.

Could this be the cutest battle since David took on Goliath? We're not sure, but watching a funny video of a beagle puppy trying to take down a rottweiler roughly 11 times his size gives the Puppy Bowl a run for its money. (Kidding! We love that Puppy Bowl.)

A beagle puppy tackling a giant attack dog would be scary, but luckily, this rottie's fangs are just for show. In fact, we'd pay money to see this rumble live! But it is plenty cute in this video.

With so many puppy videos and so little time, we've gone the extra mile and begun cataloging some of the finest YouTube offerings, separating each collection by breed in a feature called Puppy Party!

Today's roundup features the righteous rottweiler!

It's traumatic enough to have to put your dog down. it's even more shocking to wake up and find the animal you thought was dead still sitting at its food bowl the next day, waiting for you to feed it.

When his 10-year-old rottweiler, Mia, suffered from a debilitating spinal issue that let her barely able to walk, Matt Olivarez made the tough decision to put his faithful friend down. Sure he was making the right decision, Olivarez took his suffering friend to the Westcott Veterinary Care Center for her lethal injection.

After saying his final goodbyes, Olivarez took Mia's body home for a fitting burial. However, before he could get her in the ground, the pouch shrugged off her blanket and greeted Matt when he arrived home from work the next morning. Mia was reportedly waiting at her bowl to be fed, just like nothing had happened.

"For her to just wake up the next morning is very crazy," Olivarez told the Detroit News. "I watch scary movies. It was like a scene from 'Pet Sematary.'"

With so many funny puppy videos and so little time, we've gone the extra mile and begun cataloging some of the finest YouTube offerings, separating each collection by breed in a feature called Puppy Party!

Today's cute dog video round-up features the sweet Shetland sheepdog!

Do you love your big lug of a pit bull? Adore your sweetheart of a mastiff? If you lived in Vienna, Austria, you'd be facing major hassles. Last week, the city passed a controversial new law that will require the owners of so-called "fight dogs" to carry a license proving they can keep their pets in check. Alexander Willer, a spokesman for Vienna's main animal shelter, told the Associated Press that the list of affected dogs -- including rottweilers, pit bull terriers, mastiffs, and others -- was compiled "at random." He added that this kind of discrimination makes it harder for abandoned dogs of these breeds to find new homes.

Austria isn't the only country cracking down. Denmark recently added 12 more dog breeds to an outright ban on dangerous dogs. That list of the country's banned breeds includes pit bulls, Tosa Inus, American Staffordshire terriers, Brazilian mastiffs, Argentine dogos, American bulldogs, boerboels, Kangals, Central Asian ovtcharkas, Caucasian ovtcharkas, Southern Russian ovtcharkas, tornjaks and Sarplaninacs, according to the (Denmark) "Politiken." While Vienna city councilor Sandra Frauenberger says that "this is not about the criminalization of any types of dogs," the owners of these breeds have expressed concern that their pets will be discriminated against because of their breeds' bad reputations.

Some states in the U.S. have similar regulations or bans. Last year, Paw Nation reported on a pit-bull ban in New York City housing projects. Just last week, a Miami, Fla. veterinarian wrote in USA Today about how she couldn't keep a stray dog she'd rescued because the pooch is a pit bull, a breed that her county has banned despite statistics that breed bans don't curb violence.

Name: Nicco

Location: Plymouth, Mass.

Age: 3 months

Breed: Rottweiler

Favorite Toy: Squeaky rubber cat.

Favorite Treat: Cheese and hot dogs.

Likes: Chewing.

Dislikes: Hearing the word "No!"

Fun Fact: She was the youngest of a litter of 10 pups.

Congratulations to our submitter, Maggiknits. If you'd like to submit your pet, upload your favorite pet photos to our Flickr pool!

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Name: Rottweiler

Personality: The American Kennel Club describes the breed as "robust and powerful," and states that "the rottweiler is happiest when given a job to perform." According to the breed standard, a rottweiler is generally "a calm, confident and courageous dog with a self-assured aloofness that does not lend itself to immediate and indiscriminate friendships." According to rottweiler expert Jeff Shaver, "A calm, self-assured temperament is the cornerstone of a good rottweiler."

Grooming: Shaver says, "Grooming is as simple as baths as needed, trimming nails, and regular veterinarian checkups. No trimming or other grooming is needed." The AKC concurs, stating that these dogs are "to be exhibited in the natural condition with no trimming."

Common Health Issues: According to a Rottweiler Health Foundation survey, "The most common health concerns were cancer, hip dysplasia, and elbow dysplasia." The same health survey found that a significant number of owners also reported arthritis, cataracts and allergies in their rotties.

Training Tips: "This breed is very trainable, and for the most part responds very well to positive reinforcement," says Shaver. However, due to the size and athletic ability of the breed, Shaver emphasizes that "training is a must from a very early age. Start with basic puppy socialization and follow with obedience classes until the dog is committed to follow your instructions."

In the case of good vs. evil, we like to think that good always wins. In the case of cute vs. cuter, it's harder to say. How can we choose between a gawky beagle puppy who is so bold he takes on a rottweiler and the big rottie whose heart is as soft as his fuzzy coat. Sure, the difference in size makes us nervous but their adorable play-fighting makes this video hard to resist.



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Name: Zeke

Location: Seattle, Wash.

Age: 3 years old

Breed: Rottweiler

Favorite Toy: He loves to play fetch with his rope toys, and even more he loves to rip up stuffed animals. We go through quite a few!

Favorite Treat: Cheese

Likes: Being the center of attention, going to the park, and having his chest scratched!

Dislikes: Swimming

Quirky Moves: He will flop on the ground with his legs straight up in the air and acts like a total spaz. One of his nicknames is Spaz Z. Weighing 130 pounds and all legs, it's quite a sight!

Congratulations to our submitter, FurBabyLuv. If you'd like to submit your pet, upload your favorite pet photos to our Flickr pool!

More Cute Pets

Josh Hartnett has the cutest traveling companion. The hunky star was recently caught going through security at LAX with his furry new friend. We wouldn't blame TSA for giving the puppy a bit of a pat-down.

One Chicago police officer's retirement was slightly overshadowed by the retirement of her short, hairy partner. Sandra La Porta gave 31 years to the job, but her partner, a police dog named Lakos, put in 63... in dog years. Plus, Lakos brought a rubber bone to the ceremony. No one can compete with that.

Old dogs might provide insight into new tricks to improve human health. Purdue University is studying some unusually old rottweilers that have dodged cancer and other common diseases to determine whether the dogs' health can help humans live longer.

Blind woman terrified as her two dogs were attacked in a California barn... by a rattlesnake. Fortunately, she and her mother were able to get them to the vet in time to save their lives with an injection of anti-venom and other treatments.

Five years after Iggy the Lab went for a walk by himself, he's back home. Iggy was just 18 months old when he took off, and his owner was only seven, but now that he's home, it's like he never left. And he never would have returned at all if it weren't for the fact that he was microchipped!

They're unlikely friends, but when a 90 lbs. Rottweiler became stranded in the middle of a dark Ohio road, her tiny best friend, a 9 lbs. poodle, refused to leave her side.

Veterinary assistant Jody Wetzig was working Monday night at the Lorain County Animal Emergency Center when she received a phone call from a woman who had spotted two dogs sitting in the middle of the dark, two-lane road. One was a Rottweiler whose leg appeared to be injured. The other was a small, black poodle who was sitting right next to her bigger friend. The woman didn't know what to do.

"Normally, we don't take in strays," Wetzig explains to Paw Nation. "But if they're injured, we'll try to help, so we told the lady to bring the Rottweiler in."

When the woman arrived with the dogs, she had a touching story to tell. "The woman said that the poodle would not leave the Rottweiler's side," Wetzig recounts. The little dog stayed close as the woman and a passerby eased the Rottweiler onto a blanket. When they loaded the dog into the car, the poodle jumped in too.

As the operator of Love Me Tender animal rescue, Kathy Wilkes-Myers has saved hundreds of dogs, but she's never dealt with a lost pup like Ella.

The saga began one evening this summer when Wilkes-Myers was driving home from work in central Tennessee. On a rural stretch of highway, she spotted a rottweiler along the side of the road. Always on the lookout for dogs in need of help, she stopped the car and approached the black and brown pup.

"I called her, and to my amazement she crawled toward me and tucked her little head under my arm," Wilkes-Myers tells Paw Nation. Emaciated but friendly, it was immediately clear to Wilkes-Myers that this sweet, trusting dog had come from a loving home.

Near the spot where she found the dog, Wilkes-Myers noticed broken glass and skid marks. As she walked the dog back toward her car, she spotted something else -- a pile of personal items, seemingly gathered up by the dog. "I saw this scratched out nest, and all this stuff in the nest," she says -- a toothbrush, a comb, a single shoe.

On the drive back to her house, Wilkes-Myers remembered a terrible car crash she'd driven past at almost that very spot nearly two weeks earlier. She guessed that the dog survived that accident and had gathered up her family's belongings left over from the crash. "I guess that helped give her some comfort," Wilkes-Myers tells Paw Nation.

Using the clues she discovered along the side of the road, Wilkes-Myers began the hunt for the dog's family. She called the highway patrol and an insurance company whose number she found written on a water-soaked notepad at the crash site. Eventually she learned the name of the family who had been involved in the crash.

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Nadya Suleman, eat your heart out!

Terrie, a four-year-old Rottweiler, recently gave birth to a litter of 18 puppies, besting the previous UK record by five. Sadly, two of the 18 didn't survive past the first day (one being a stillborn), but Terrie is getting by just fine with the help of her owner, Nicolette Morris of Luton, Beds, and Terrie's other 112-pound son, Jim (from a previous litter of nine).

Although the babies still haven't opened their eyes, 10 females and six males and are cooperatively nursing 1.5oz of milk every four hours and they have already doubled in size.

"I know Rottweilers have got a bad name," says Morris, "but I love the breed. I'd recommend them to anyone."

Morris took on the role of emergency midwife when Terrie went into labor at 12:50 p.m. on Sunday, July 26. "Terrie was absolutely huge before she gave birth but I never dreamt she would have so many," Morris told the Telegraph. "It was staggering. They just kept on coming. I began to wonder if she'd ever stop."

And while 18 is impressive, the Guinness World Records gives the title of largest litter of pups to a Neapolitan Mastiff in Manea, Cambs, who birthed 24 pups in January 2005.

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