In addition to the bitch scent; whether in the general area or used as a rub, one more thing comes to mind. In the late 1980's a well known dogman said to me "only a game dog can take a keep". To be honest, it sounded like BS to me at the time. Within a couple of years though, I had my first one quit in a show. This dog was an absolute monster who pulled plugs the size of half dollars out of everything he was rolled with for 15-20 minutes. We were debating on whether to game test him further, or just show him. I had a well known experienced dogman see him and say "if you aren't going to show him I sure as hell will." So we hooked him, M37 into an oldtimer with one of his homebreds down from one of his ROM sires, and the show was set to happen in our own barn.
The keep went great, although this dog could only take a small portion of the workload of a half brother of his that I had some previous success with. The way we worked this dog was that The Pope would drive his old Ranchero 500 through the soft sand of grape vineyards that my family once owned, with me strapped down to the hood for safety. In this manner, the dog was worked through various paces of roadwork. I already had one go 2:40 with this same kind of work, so I knew he would be strong and have really good air. When we wanted to hit the sprint pace about 25mph, I would flash a big, stupid looking, life sized stuffed dog out in front of him. The dog would almost explode out of his harness, and we'd get him to a full blast run for a spell, and then back him down. Now that my partner has passed away, these cool winter nights were times to never be forgotten, time spent working a bulldog with my friend that I will forever cherish. At the end of the night, the reward for this dog was to let him maul the big, goofy, stuffed animal. It seemed that he grew to hate that damned thing more and more each week as the keep progressed!
As we were winding down the work dramatically the week of the show, a strange thing happened. At the end of the night when we tossed him the stuffed animal he humped it, whereas previously he would have to be broken off it with a parting stick trying to maul this big toy. We didn't think much of it at the time, and the work decreased over the next few nights to the point that he wasn't running sprints and working with this stuffed dog any longer. The night of the show arrived, and all seemed well until the release. He just went over and barely mouthed the dog, and immediately went to trying to screw the other dogs face, or any other area of his body he could. It looked like a bad episode of canine homo porn! This was his singular focus for the next 1:14 minutes until he finally refused to scratch. Now, one could argue we were bitch rubbed, and I still think we could have been. However, in my mind the words of the old dogman began to echo over and over "only a game dog can take a keep". We decided to take the dog home and try him another day. This dog was hand raised by me from weaning when I had a yard of dogs numbering less than 10. He had always been a gentle dog. He didn't take a lot of punishment from the other dog, but when we laid him out and tried to assess what was wrong with him, he went psycho man-aggressive on us. My partner said to me "I'm shooting my half of him", and within about 9 more breaths of life, thus ended a nightmare of an evening.
It is my opnion that the 8 week keep broke this dog on the last week, as evidenced when he tried to hump the stuffed animal early in the week, and most certainly when he went aggressive on us. The dog was only putting in about 8 miles of roadwork per night at peak, and his half brother was putting in over 16 miles, so it wasn't like he was over worked. He was just overworked for his less-than-game self. Since that time, I have seen this scenario play out again over and over, and so have most of you if you think about it. How many of you have heard a guy say after a quit "he showed far gamer than this before" or "he sure showed a lot more ability in his rolls"? The keep will break many dogs friends.
The early experience with this "canine porn star turned attempted murderer" led to the very exacting testing standards that we began to use before taking one out to show. As I chronicled on this site in an earlier post, I think heavy testing is a two edged sword. It causes you to take out fewer dogs because you find out the truth about some of them at home before they ever make the show. Some of those pit game ones could have eked out a win or two perhaps. The good side is, the competition has to take you into very deep water to defeat you IF they can, AND......... the dog who has already shown very game for you does not break down mentally in a keep. This mindset is also what has caused me as a breeder to use; as much as possible, my show stock for my brood stock. Not only have they won or lost and then showed the durability to survive, they also took a keep without mentally caving in too, which I believe runs parallel to the complex trait that we call gameness. "Only a game dog can take a keep." It sure makes more sense than it did 23 years ago when I first heard it.
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Originally Posted by STORMY
