Kelly's Savior - Tojo my everyday HERO

It doesn't take a dog to catch a terrorist to be a hero. My two year old Tojo is an everyday hero.

Tojo is basically a calm, confident and courageous rottweiler with a self-assured aloofness that does not lend itself to immediate and indiscriminate friendships. He is self-confident and responds quietly and with a wait-and-see attitude to influences in its environment.

Last week was the first time I saw Tojo’s inherent desire to protect home and family. I live in a canine friendly neighborhood. Almost every second house has a dog in our area. As usual we were on our morning walk, Tojo leashed and Kelly (my labrador) unleashed as she is completely trained. As we passed one of buildings, a huge German Shepard (unleashed and with a bad reputation of biting humans and other pets) rushed out of the building and attacked Kelly. Tojo and I were about 10 meters ahead and I had no time to react, other than unleash Tojo.

Tojo immediately rushed to Kelly’s rescue – climbed on the back of the GSD and bit him on his neck and forehead. The GSD turned his attention to Tojo and tried to bite him back. However Tojo dodged his attack and caught the GSD’s under neck area and dragged him for 10-15 meters. By this time the GSD was squealing in pain and had the GSD’s owner trying to save him. I calmly requested Tojo to let go and he did instantaneously. I checked Kelly – she was ok, except for a few bruises on her legs.

The GSD’s owner instantly apologized to me for it was his dog that assaulted mine to begin with. He also did reveal that it was the first time that he had seen his dog bitten and scared of another one. He wanted to know if I had specifically trained him to attack – to which I responded in the negative. I could make out from his conversation that he was essentially despondent as his dog couldn’t bite or scare Tojo. I told him to take his dog to the vet immediately and to put in the extra effort to socialize his pet.

On the way home – I was proud of what Tojo had done to protect his family and happy for the fact that inspite of being an extremely strong and physically powerful dog, he still loves to play around with my building children and petted frequently.

Rottweilers have received some negative publicity over a period of time. The portrayal of rottweilers as evil dogs in several fictional films and TV series, most notably in The Omen, and negative press has added to their negative publicity.

According to me - The Rottweiler is a dog of many talents: he’s rough and tumble, ready for anything; easy to train, if treated with respect and consistency; loyal and protective, at times to a fault; strong, yet gentle; aloof and dignified with strangers and playful and loving to his family. In short, the Rottie is the typical “tough guy with a heart of gold.”

Rottweiler owners without a strong grasp of the breed’s nature can find themselves in trouble if the dog has been badly bred or assumes leadership of the family. The fault lies with the owners and not the breed.