Facts & Fallacies

Facts &  Fallacies

Facts

We see many ghost writers talking about Hoytt and the lack of pedigrees on our web, referring to our site meaning in our case we must not be proud of the Lines we  use...These folks apparently know little about breeders who have created their own Line for the simple fact is that every dog in our programs carry the same LINE, it's  HOYTT - do we really need to put pedigrees up to prove we are offering only HOYTT line Dobes?  Of course each Dobe we place comes with a formal pedigree, it's AKC papers and a very detailed outline covering all the medical services done before the Dobe is placed. That pretty much covers the paper work. Of course each Hoytt Dobe also comes with four specially produced instructional DVD's all told seven hours of instruction including an extra DVD just with the newly placed Dobe as the star.

If there is a single area that shows how much these writers do not know about dogs, breeding and claims of improvement is what a pedigree represents. Very simply it is a way for sellers to emphasize the bloodline of their dogs. Now what Lines make up the Dobes we create? RIGHT,  HOYTT!   So we remind the viewer that a pure bloodline means all the dogs in the pedigree are from the same breeder.  Not part of experimenting with dogs until you get everything you seek which really every one of the old line breeders and those beginning today have had to do, but it takes decades and if they succeed they too begin emphasizing their line for it represents the final step in a very long process of trial by error.  A Bloodline is a work of art that took the sculptor the better part of their life to create and now they are ready to share the greatness.  

Fact...And yes The House of Hoytt was the first kennel to see sixty years of ongoing success, success that is needed to build a private blood line in Dobermans. Making the House of Hoytt the only breeders of the Dobe today that personally created every Dobe in the previous four to five plus generations and it is this first hand knowledge of each Dobe behind the Dobe being offered that allows us to be able to profile a future litter even before the mating has taken place and then use individual evaluations to choose which Dobe is right for each of our buyer.

Fact...Ask for a copy of any of our offered Dobes to check their line and it will be 100% HOYTT not a mix of different breeders Dobes. Ask a seller for a copy of an offered Dobes pedigree, after you receive it ask them about each of the dogs named over just the last three generations, not what they heard from a third party but what they know of the dogs behind the dogs being offered...first hand. Today's breeders rarely have met even the second generation of the dogs being offered so this is how you can begin separating the hobby breeder from the 'Experienced Breeder'.

Fact...Without first hand knowledge of background a seller has little idea as to what a dog will turn out to be, this  meaning health, temperament as well as longevity.

Fact...Health tests of each producing dog are important but mostly serves only the dogs being tested so first hand knowledge of the dogs that came before the dog being offered has greater long term merit.

Of course combining excellent parental health with personal knowledge of three or four generations is your best protection in both health and personality. First hand knowledge of the Line is the equivalent of the list placed on a new car window - it tells you about the options, options you can't see.

BONDING - BONDING - BONDING ... ultimately one of the most misunderstood terms in the dog world. A day does not go by that someone does not ask for a six or eight week old pup, because they were told if they do not start young, the dog will not bond. Then there are those folks who had a bad experience with their last dog "bonding," and they are sure it was taken from its mother too young, now they are looking for an older dog. Then, of course, the more typical statement: their last dog was older and it took months to bond or the caller felt the dog never really accepted the family. Well, the fact is that bonding is just a state of mind.

Find a dog seeking a close relationship with humans and humans who are seeking a close relationship with a dog and like-magic BONDING occurs. If you question this, consider the seeing eye dog. It is raised in one situation and trained in another before it is turned over to its new master.
Living with two or more Dobermans - we have heard numerous times from both established clients and new inquirers that their vet or local dog trainer has told them that if they bring a second or even third Dobe into the family, the dogs will move from living for human attention to preferring to hang out with their kind.Not sure about the rest of the Doberman world but Hoytt Dobes with partners simply hang out with each other when you don't have time for them. In the mornings they head out and in fifteen minutes will put five miles of exercise on each other when you are time short in the mornings and then there is that last outing in the evenings. Once again they can unwind each other before turning in. Never will they prefer each other to taking that stroll or heading up the trail with you. . The trick is not to bring home two at the same time - talk to us and we will explain our rules of multi dog placements. Also go to our owners most of the group have at least a pair but when selected we always match personality of the canines with the owners preferences.
 
LET THE PUP HAVE A CHILDHOOD -  another of those strange 'facts.' Being a child, to a dog it must taste everything new, jumping up is simply a way to get your attention since you are much taller then your canine it is like the small child who wants attention - the canine way of reaching it's parent. is to jump up but you can teach it from day one to not put a paw on you - watch our DVD's and you will see in excitement our guys may jump but they don't touch with their feet. They don't know right from wrong until we spent the time to teach them just like our children - it is an hour by hour learning experiences when you are new to life with family. We cringe when we read that one should wait until a dog is at least  six months of age before setting down the rules or you will harm the bonding process.  We hear trainers feel that a pup is to young to concentrate or retain the rules of a structured training program. This is both true and false since each dog is an individual meaning other aspects of its genetic predisposition has much to do with directing it's development to fit the environment.
Many trainers who think protection first will preach that early rules will harm the dogs ability to developed it's protective side and that is true if you are wanting a yard guard but you want manners while accelerating social graces so in the end the dog understands life in our world better. But once again it all depends on the genetic make up of the dog. Then finally there is the dog training club that will not let your dog partake in obedience work  until it is at least six months of age encouraging you instead to keep the youngster at pre-school level with the others also thought to be to young to begin setting rules.  Apparently these individuals have never known the joys of working with a great Dobe. Remember the following: Educating before the bad habits develop is TRAINING, after the fact it is just a series of REPRIMANDS.
 
THERE ARE NO BAD DOGS ONLY BAD OWNERS  - This has a yes and no answer, and a common thread that we see on the Internet is in defense of the dogs who are problems. In actuality an irresponsible owner is the downfall of a good dog no matter what the breed, but the best owner cannot create a superstar if the dog's God-given abilities are not equal to owner expectation.
 
A DOG WILL ONLY WORK FOR THE TRAINER ... This may be true in most situations, but not when the dog was introduced to training as a form of communication rather than an act of discipline. The difference here is that we convince our Dobes that obedience workouts are fun. It is quality time between two friends.

 The question......Can one person train a dog for another?

CAN YOU SAY "SIT"?
A simple example is the command of sit. It is much more complicated to teach sit than to ask a trained dog to sit. An excellent analogy is teaching the deaf to pronounce a word that they cannot hear. To the new canine student who may have just learned its name (a feat in itself - think about it), what they hear coming from our mouths is just gibberish, more confusing than even our trying to understand a foreign language since we at least understand what is going on around us. While I would not know where to begin in teaching the deaf to speak, we are untouchable in the world of the Dobe and early education.

 The White Doberman
Rip-Off or Rare Find

In the mid-seventies I inserted a section with the above heading. The first paragraph began, "As far back as I can recall, I have heard rumors that leprechauns exist along with the abominable snowman, but I have never seen any of these personally and in the last few years, ads have begun to appear offering another improbability: the so-called White Doberman." It went on and as humorously as possible. I made rather brash statements including my referring to the "white Dobe," if it did exist, as the bastard of the Doberman World.

Since then I have met a few personally, received photos from sellers and have a few on video. Does this mean white Dobermans exist? Perhaps, but only if you rationalize. If it's not black, red, blue or fawn but it has a docked tail and cropped ears and light in color it's called a Dobe, then yes they exist but in sixty seven years of breeding Dobes there has never been a even partially white but maybe these sellers have washed-out fawns or blues? If the a Dobe of accepted color has a iron excess problem they loose color pigmenation to varied degrees. Now take for example the red Dobe. If the color is so light it looks like straw, it still is considered a red; or should someone begin calling it the rare straw Dobe? There is also a "chocolate bar-brown" Dobe, but these too are simply called red; or should someone begin calling these dogs rare Hershey® Dobes? In the case of the reds looking like straw and chocolate all are simply genetic or medically induced flukes.

Taking into consideration the color variances and knowing the ancestral history of the breed, not even the second authored book* on the Dobe (The Doberman Pincher, 1926) mentions a white-coated dog as contributing to the development of the breed. For over one-hundred years of the breed's existence, even a small patch of white on a Dobe and it could not gain any points toward the title Champion under AKC and UKC rules...that stands today.

One also must wonder why, if the breed took only seven years from initial mixing of the old German Shepherd and the large smooth-coated German Pincher to be an accepted breed (1899), did eighty years pass before we began seeing ads offering 'whites?' And why in the last 45 years has no breeder of whites yet produce paired whites that produce just whites. That said by the breeds 200th birthday House of Hoytt may be offering White and Rust Dobes, time will tell. Until than we remain a four color Line and to date no Hoytt bred Dobe carries the Z numbers but be advised a few breeders have pirated the Hoytt name to encourage sales...always check with us if you run across anyone claiming to offer Hoytt Dobes, for like Rolex, the knock-offs may cost as little as 1% of the real thing but you just paid ten times their actual worth and lost the joy of experiencing the finest example of the breeders art. So be aware even in the world of dogs no matter what the breed be careful and if you really seek the best of a breed go directly to source - like the purity of color, you delete - you weaken. 

One day we may see an ad that hypes five legged Dobes for those who spend time hiking with their dogs. If it breaks a leg, it still has four good ones. A fine example of American salesmanship don't you agree.