Temperament by Lisa Ford - Frogholler Filas The temperament of the Fila comes in a rainbow of expression. From relatively friendly and mild, to sharp and aggressive, both are correct as long as a few things are evident. Confidence and stability must be apparent. To begin, I will discuss the qualities of the two extreme temperaments, mellow and sharp. Then I will review a story about an average puppy through his first year and a half. The temperament of a mellow puppy may not show itself until the puppy is two to three years of age. Rest assured that if socialized correctly this puppy is just as willing to defend its owner as a sharp puppy. The benefits to a mellow puppy are several. First, because of its happy go lucky nature, and its easy going attitude, this puppy is a breeze to socialize. Just take it out in public and let it investigate and learn. Try to avoid situations that will not lead to the puppy coming away with the attitude, "I'm not afraid of anyone or anything." The rest will come naturally. This dog when an adult will feel absolutely no fear if confronted by an aggressive stranger. It will have to deal with the confusion of, "Why is this nice person acting like that?" but because it was never hurt by a stranger it should not fear them. The mellow puppy is WAY less likely to bite a person with out first giving them the benefit of the doubt. They are less likely to see threats where there aren't any. It is not a constant battle to remain ever-vigilant while walking your mellow puppy for fear that someone will get within striking distance. The drawbacks to a mellow puppy are mostly of a personal nature. When asked, "What was the breed created for?", you will have to reply (with a straight face, no less) "They were bred for guarding - Oh, and she really likes her tummy rubbed!" The temperament of a sharp puppy will usually come on much sooner in life, with a strong distrust and dislike of strangers at a very early age. The benefits of a sharp puppy are, you don't look like a fool when someone asks to pet your puppy and you reply, "He's not friendly" and the little booger is sitting there wagging its tail like the most well bred little Labrador ever. A sharp puppy will avoid strangers or will growl if talked to by them, backing up your statement regarding his unfriendliness. A sharp puppy is more likely to ward off a threat at an earlier age simply because he wards off all people, nice or otherwise. A sharp puppy if socialized properly will defend with very little encouragement from the owner. Because of this characteristic, it is extremely important that the owner of a sharp puppy be consistent regarding socializing and the maintenance of control. The best way to socialize this kind of puppy is to take him out beginning with extremely controlled situations, like to a pet store where you have gone in before hand to explain your puppy's nature to the staff, and ask that they please not confront you or the puppy while you are there. This gives this type of puppy a chance to learn and socialize in situations without having to worry about strangers bothering him or his owner. Some sharp puppies will spend so much time looking for trouble (aka: strangers) around the next bend that they forget to learn about their surroundings. One of the worst things that you can do to a sharp pup is MAKE it sit for touching by strangers. A sharp puppy is revolted by the thought of a stranger's hands on it, and many will bide their time until they retaliate. You can not make a sharp puppy friendly, but by forcing it to allow a stranger's physical contact you can make it paranoid. It is difficult at best, taking a puppy who has been subjected to a stranger's touch, to get them to look forward at a show or to pay attention to you in public. All they are thinking about is who may be coming up behind them, and what are that person's intentions. This is where you get your accidental bites. The dog bites first, assuming that the stranger was there to handle them. The best advise for this kind of puppy is to build its confidence while at the same time increasing your amount of control along with its level of obedience. Sharp pups that I have raised this way are more surprised when accidentally touched by a stranger, than aggressive. For the puppies that fall in between these two examples, and that will be 98% of them, you have to make your own decisions taking into account your particular puppy's attitude and personality. My number one rule is: "If the puppy wants to be pet, please, pet it. If it doesn't, please leave it alone." Here is what you can expect from an average Fila puppy: Day One (8 weeks of age). Hooray, your puppy just arrived and the whole family has gone to the airport to pick it up. When you get there, you can hear a blood-curdling scream coming from a tiny little plastic crate. There he is, sitting there looking as ornery as a stirred up bee hive with annihilated toys and blanket inside (and hopefully no potty!) "Look," says Dad, "he's all Fila, huh?" "Yup," replies Mom, "he could take on the world right now!!" You get the crate with the surprisingly heavy occupant outside into the grass so that he can go potty after his long journey. You open the crate door and your snotty puppy, takes one look at all of you and backs up, sits down and hunkers into a shivering bundle. "Uh oh," says Dad, "I hope that breeder didn't sell us a puppy with bad temperament." Well, he's here now, so you make the best of it and reach in and grab him, or tip the crate up and dump the pup out into the lawn. The puppy sits there looking into space and you swear that you can actually see the static behind its eyes. After some time, the pup shakes off the newness of it all, and starts to sniff around. After completing a long awaited tinkle, Sister squeals in a high pitched voice, "What a smart little dog! You're a smarty, aren't you boy?! Good PUPPY!!!" At the sound of this, the pup's butt flies into the air and he drops down on his chest and he begins to play with the kids. All of the previous worry about his temperament flaws are quickly forgotten. Two days later, after picking the kids up at school, Mom decides to stop and treat everyone to lunch at a local drive thru burger joint. Including little Jake, as the family has decided to call him. When their turn comes at the drive up window, and the teenage kid asks them if they would like fries with their burgers, Jake roars from the backseat and smacks the car window with his face, scraping his teeth on the glass, diligently protecting his new family. When the family gets home, and the story is told and re-told to Dad, he exclaims, "Wow, we sure did get a fine example of a Fila from that breeder!!" One month later, when Jake is totally bonded with his family, Grandpa comes out from Florida to visit for a week. The family has told Gramps all about Jake, who by the way is almost 50 pounds, and they are looking forward to Jake meeting good ol' Grandpa. When Grandpa arrives, the whole family, including Jake, goes to pick him up at the airport. After hugs and kisses are exchanged, they all go to load Grandpa and his luggage into the car to take him home. Jake promptly tries to remove Grandpa's eyebrows and nose from his face. Grandpa replies, "Why would you want a dog like that?" Dad, thinks it's kind of cool, (after all Grandpa is his wife's dad, not his!) and tells Grandpa that Filas are supposed to be like that. Mom, fearing for her father's life, is disturbed by Jake's behavior and disciplines him. The kids are told to hold Jake in the backseat until they arrive home, and Jake is put outside where he sits confused and upset. A couple of days later, Brother accidentally leaves the door open and Jake, being his normal happy self, goes bounding into the kitchen only to run smack-dab into Grandpa. As Jake slides across the linoleum in the direction of Grandpa's feet, his plump little legs are already running backwards as fast as they can go. His eyes are huge and are rolling around in his head wildly, and his ears and tail are flat and tucked. When he finally comes to a stop and is almost able to turn tail and run the other way, Grandpa reaches down and tries to pick Jake up. Grandpa is promptly bit on the fleshy part of his hand, and Jake is once again tossed out on his rump to spend the rest of Grandpa's visit outside. Dad is disturbed because of all of the things that he read about the Fila being totally confident and fearless, and most importantly not being a fear biter, and here was his expensive pup clearly biting out of fear. He just knew that the breeder conned him into paying big bucks for a shy-temperament dog. The months went by and Jake had his good times and his not so good times, but all-in-all the family loved him to pieces and Jake would gladly give up his life for any one of them in return. His socializing was relatively consistent, and they even took him to puppy kindergarten. He was allowed to play with the neighbor's dogs and even grew quite fond of the neighbor, and tolerant of the people in the neighborhood. Several months after Jake turned one year of age, the family decided to take him to a temperament test. Dad, remembering back to the 'punctured Grandpa incident', knew in his heart of hearts, that Jake didn't stand a chance at passing. Mom, having spent a lot of time bonding with Jake when the kids were at school, and driving around town with him, felt that he might just prove Dad wrong. Well, the big day arrived, and Jake was led into the TT area by a proud Mom. Everyone there had told her how pretty Jake looked, and what a well behaved boy he was. When she looked down into his soft brown eyes and saw the look of total adoration looking back at her, she thought to herself, "Jake, I don't care if you pass this test or not. I love you and I know that you love me and your family, and that is all that really matters!" Jake ignored the friendly and neutral strangers, and he walked over the unsure footing without a flinch, although he startled something fierce when that umbrella was opened up in his face. He cocked his head back and forth at the gunshot and thought to himself that it sounded an awful lot like when his boy threw his baseball against the garage door after school. If the truth be known, he was having a grand old time. Mom looked down at her 130 pound Jake and thought, 'So far, so good.' She back tied him and held him close by his lead and the agitator came out shaking a stick and hollering. Jake, taking one look at this psycho coming at his lady and himself, barked and growled and looked up at Mom like, 'Quick, let's get out of here!!!' In her eyes he saw trust and she said three words to him, "Jake, get him." Jake re-assembled himself, stepped out in front of Mom (honestly believing that today was the day he was to die) while at the same time unleashing a horrific burst of aggression, and grabbed the sleeve pulling it free from the agitator's arm. This, of course, scared him because it brought back the memories of being tossed out the door after nipping that smelly old guy. This time he was really in for it - he had tore the guy's arm off, surely that was worse than poking a hole in a hand! Jake squeezed his eyes shut, and splatted flat on the ground waiting for the beating that was sure to follow. To his surprise, everyone was clapping and his family was petting him and telling him that he was a good boy. Oh well, take it while the taking's good - that was Jake's motto! This story is a fine example of the first year and a half of the average Fila puppy's life. Let's start at the beginning. A puppy by definition is: a young or baby dog. Of course Jake is going to act confident in his crate (where he is familiar) and scared outside the airport (where he is totally off of his familiar territory) - he's a puppy. Once he has gone in the car several times dropping off the kids at school and picking them up again, the car becomes 'his' car, and he is comfortable defending it from the safety within. If the window was rolled down, do you think he would defend it quite so aggressively, probably not - he's a puppy. The same applies to Grandpa trying to get in the car. But when Grandpa has been inside of the house for several days and Jake was stuck outside, is he ready to defend the kitchen to his death? No - he's a puppy. When Gramps picks him up off of the floor, is Jake stable enough to know that the old guy means no harm? No - he's a puppy. Does a one year old baby act bold in every respect? Will they always make the right decisions? NO! If we think of one year of a dog's life being equal to 7 of ours, we are expecting an awful lot of a PUPPY to pass the temperament test at the age of one or one and a half (a 7 to 10 year old child). Filas are not adults until the age of at least two years and most are still pretty dopey at three. And yet we want them to be fearless and 100% courageous in the face of aggression at the age of one. Some do pass at that young age, some don't, but that doesn't mean that they won't pass in 6 months or another year. Keep in mind, too, how confusing it is for a Fila pup when they DO show aggression and we tell them constantly, LEAVE IT. When the threat is real, they don't know if they should react or if they should just play it safe and 'leave it' like they are always expected to do. Jake's part of the story lacked tremendous detail regarding how his thoughts and emotions towards the agitator would have been tugging at his enormous desire to be a 'Good Boy.' Luckily, in this example, Jake was socialized adequately so that he did not have a problem with the other aspects of the TT, but many Fila pups are neglected thinking that this brings out temperament, when all it does is shelter them from gaining the confidence that they need to pass such a test. When Jake bit Gramps, true, he was biting out of fear, but only because he felt he was caught and this is the way a dog reacts to being caught. Would you rather your Fila puppy be carried off stoically by an eagle because it is too bold and proud to bite from fear? If you do, then your expectations of a dog, (and YES, the Fila is only a dog with the brain of a dog; he is not a super-hero with the abilities to reason and understand things beyond his years and species limitations) are WAY TOO HIGH. Filas tend to go through periods of total confusion in regards to their temperament. One day they are the most confident, all-knowing, fearless little snots, and the next day they hide behind your leg at the local pet store when that nice old lady with the blue hair and handmade shawl, offers them a biscuit. Just accept that they too have their good days and their bad days, and focus on making each day an opportunity to gain more confidence. If Jake decided that today he was more curious about strangers than aggressive, his family should ask a trustworthy person if they would feed him and let him sniff at them without attempting to talk to or pet Jake. Or take him to the big city and walk him all around there getting him used to the traffic, pigeons, and people. The reverse is also true. If Jake was going off at every stranger, then that day would maybe be more constructively spent if he were to go to the beach and learn about salt water, sand, and sea gulls. Or out to the country to learn about cows, tall grass, and tractors. Exposure is the key to a reliable Fila. And through exposure comes confidence and stability. The more your dog does, sees and learns about in his first year, the more stable he is going to be throughout his life.