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Rottweilers are not bulldogs

March 17, 2015 by retrieverman

undocked rottweiler

I don’t know where this idea came from, but there is profound misunderstanding about what rottweilers are.

Rottweilers are sometimes referred to as Metzgerhund, which means “butcher’s dog,” and someone decided that this meant the same thing as the English “butcher’s dog.”  In Medieval and early modern England, butcher’s dogs, which became the bulldogs, baited cattle before slaughter. When the dogs were released upon bulls, many people would show up to watch the spectacle. These events eventually became the bull-baiting contests that were quite popular throughout England.

However, that is not the function of a rottweiler. Rottweilers are not closely related to bulldogs at all. A few years ago, researchers at UCLA released a study on dog origins, which posited a close relationship between domestic dogs and Middle Eastern wolves. Because the researchers looked a large sample of DNA from each dog, they were able to draw a phylogenetic wheel of domestic dogs.

dog breed

 

 

Rottweilers don’t fit with any of the mastiffs, bullmastiffs, or bulldogs. Instead, they share a common ancestry with the Great Dane, the Bernese mountain dog, and the St. Bernard.

Only two Swiss mountain dog breeds were sampled for the study, the Bernese and the St. Bernard. I bet if the researchers had included the Greater Swiss, the Entlebucher, and the Appenzeller, I think we would find these breeds were even closer to the Rottweiler than the Great Dane.

If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. If you look at where Rottweil is on the map, it is not that far from Switzerland. It actually joined the Swiss Confederacy in the fifteenth century, and there was extensive trade between Switzerland and Rottweil for many centuries.

The origins of the rottweiler actually lie with the Swiss mountain dogs that would be used to drive cattle into the butcher shops.

The dogs were not baiters. They were herders and guards.

So when you see someone lumping rottweilers with members of the bulldog, mastiff, and bull and terrier dogs, this person simply hasn’t the foggiest clue about the proper classification of dogs.

I also think it is past time to drop the term “Molosser” to describe dogs that have big, broad heads. It assumes all these breeds are related, but they clearly aren’t. Never mind that the history behind that term is either misinterpreted or the result of wild speculation.

A rottweiler is a droving dog, a farm dog, and a guard. The bulldog and mastiff family have their origins in the big game hunting dogs of Western Europe, which were later used on domestic stock.

I know this discussion of breed classification may seem a bit trivial, but there are real world issues involved here.

Some people promote the mythology of a monophyletic Molosser family of dogs because it romantically connects their boxers and French bulldogs to the war dogs of Rome or the mountain dogs of Tibet. Others use it to conflate bogus statistics about dog attacks. The former better realize that the latter are a clear and present danger when it comes to BSL.

So it might be wise for everyone to correctly classify dogs based upon actual science and a more careful reading of history.

The monophyly of Molossers has simply been discredited.

So stop using the term!

 

 

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Posted in dog breeds, working dogs | Tagged Rottweiler, Swiss mountain dog | 5 Comments

5 Responses

  1. on March 19, 2015 at 11:08 am Jen Robinson

    I lived in a dorf (small village) outside of Leipzig, Germany for a few years. Rottis, as a land race, were pretty common on farms or former farms. Typically they live within a walled compound and are pretty ferocious to non-familiar people. The area has long been a conflict zone between Slav and Germanic populations, not to mention changing political ideologies. I never saw a Rotti herding or pulling a cart . . .but they are great at guarding territory and family. I don’t see how anyone could confuse them with a bulldog.


    • on March 19, 2015 at 5:47 pm retrieverman

      That’s well outside the historical range of the Rottweiler.

      That’s the former GDR/DDR, actually not too far from where my ancestors came from when the left Germany.


      • on March 21, 2015 at 6:55 pm Jen Robinson

        I’ve never seen a map of the historical range . . . just saw the dogs . . . and met people whose lives had been disturbed by Hitler, Stalin, and unification. I’m not even sure the folk called them Rottweilers . . . but they sure looked like it.The exchange system outside of the market was extensively developed in the DDR . . . I was aware of lots of swapping/bartering/exchange of ornamental plants and building materials and other things that people wanted and the DDR markets didn’t provide. Seems likely that dogs fit in the same category. The locals had lots of complaints about Zigeuners . . . possibly imaginary . . . and theft. Guard dogs were viewed as valuable for protection.


        • on March 22, 2015 at 8:36 am retrieverman

          The were developed in near the Swiss border in the Southwest in the state of Baden-Württemberg,


  2. on March 22, 2015 at 1:57 pm Wanda

    The Rottweiler is probably descended from the Italian Mastiff, which accompanied the herds that the Romans brought with them when they invaded Europe.



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