My Breeding Dogs’ Temperament Test Results
I began with American lines from Von Nassau Kennels in Seattle. I became friends with Ann Mesdag and several times stayed at her house for a week, sometimes longer, learning how to be a breeder. I had my first litter in 1997 and continued to get dogs from her until she retired. In the 70’s a fad began in the American lines which emphasized more angulation in the rear end so as to produce a dramatic side gait. I didn’t like that and, as long as Ann was breeding, was able to get more working-type dogs of balanced conformation from her. By the time she retired in the mid-1980’s, the fad had totally taken over the American lines and I couldn’t find a breeder whose American-line dogs I liked, so I switched to European lines, first a mix of European show and working lines, and eventually totally to European working lines.
The Von Nassau lines had been very healthy, with good hips, and I was surprised by my first few European lines when they came up with eye problems, heart problems, immune system problems, and hip and elbow problems. I increased the number of health screenings that I did before passing a dog for breeding. Eventually I found a pup who grew up to be a keeper.
Roche Jaune’s Triumph of Celhaus CD, TDInc (Glory) was born in 1994. With her first litter, born in 1997, I began using the German system of assigning a letter to each litter and requiring the pups to be registered with that letter as the beginning of their name. I kept a pup from the A litter (Celhaus Ashi Armati). I also began doing temperament testing when the pups were 7 weeks old. My good friend, Suzan Guilford, a former police canine handler, has done her police/ narcotics test on all of my litters since the A litter except for those born when she was working in Florida for a couple of years. When one of the A litter went to be a Search & Rescue dog and subsequently I became friends with a search & rescue trainer, Janet Wilts, she began coming whenever possible to administer the search & rescue test on my pups. We began doing Suzan’s test one day and Janet’s test the next, and inviting those who were getting puppies to come watch the testing and ask questions of the testers before we adjourned to my house to decide who got which pup. I am deeply grateful to Suzan and Janet and the other SAR people who have helped with testing over the years.
Ashi produced well, as did her daughter Joyful, but unfortunately that line was lost for breeding after an imported stud dog (Cassius vom haus Valken Platz) introduced a heavy concentration of genes for pannus, an eye condition. I don’t include temperament tests from Ashi and her progeny here, though I do have them. Instead, here are the temperament tests from the line which begins with Glory’s other daughter, Jubilee, and continues until today.
I have gone through the alphabet once and am now going through it again; those litters are named with double letters (AA, BB, CC, etc.).
If you’re not familiar with my temperament testing, see these illustrated pages with explanations of each exercise: Police/Narcotics test and Search & Rescue Test
Females
1998 Glory’s daughter Jubilee’s Temperament Tests (Jubilee was the only pup in her litter so I didn’t assign a litter letter to her)
2004 Temperament tests of Jubilee’s daughter, Quinta from the Q litter
2009 Temperament tests of Quinta’s daughter, Lively from the CC litter
2013 Temperament tests of Lively’s daughter, GloryToo from the GG litter
2013 Temperament tests of Lively’s daughter, Soleil from the GG litter
2015 Temperament tests of Lively’s daughter, Spirit from the ii litter
2015 Temperament tests of Soleil’s daughter, Mercy from the JJ litter
2016 Temperament tests of GloryToo’s daughter, Lovely from the LL litter
Males
2006 Temperament tests of GloryToo’s & Soleil’s sire, Mercy’s and Lovely’s grandsire, Chaos
2016 Temperament test of my current stud dog, Cantor
Litters
Temperament test results of all of my recent litters can be found on the litter pages listed on their mother’s temperament test page.
see more information on the six generations of my female line