Game v.s. Show

Ok I have been seeing statements all of the forums about what do u like game bred dogs or show bred dogs, this is about the dumbest question I have ever heard... I have been assocatated with the apbt for about 25 yrs. or more can't remember not having one other than about 5 yrs. that my wife and I didnt have one. but If you go by the standard in ADBA the attiude of the dog is important not saying DA I mean the over all temperment of the dog like ; alertness, aware of its surroundings , confindent, freindly to stangers NO "HA " AGRESSIVE DOG PERIOD, althought some DA is accepted. If you breed for showing standard your will produce a dog that has all the things it needs for the job. I have seen alot of weight pull dogs that are game and excelled in the art of weight pulling but some of them wouldnt even come close to doing anything in the show ring or anything else. All im trying to say is show and game goes hand in hand and there is no differece in the two. Growing up my father bred like the old school way and he produces some great show dog as well working dogs. several weight pull ace and champions, grand champions. and each and every one were game and my defineion of game is the dog will complete the task no matter what the cost even if it means death, its not always DA,some people bred for DA and that is not what should happen because if the dog is not conformation right then all you have is a dog that has all kinds of DA, but no physical ability to do the job.
DA dogs are not always game they can be very DA and as soon as it gets tough they quit on the job at hand.
So I think we all should be very careful on what we breed and why we breed. Have a plan and stick to it and dont breed just cause you can make a little money. if you think that you'll make some money your wrong.

midwest_showdogs wrote:

im trying to say is show and game goes hand in hand and there is no differece in the two. Growing up my father bred like the old school way and he produces some great show dog as well working dogs. several weight pull ace and champions, grand champions. and each and every one were game and my defineion of game is the dog will complete the task no matter what the cost even if it means death, DA dogs are not always game they can be very DA and as soon as it gets tough they quit on the job at hand..

I dont really see how show dogs and gameness run hand in hand,thats a new one to e,gameness has to be tested for,also alot of the show dogs i see in the ukc and not really ideal specimens for work,also the standard is clearly open to ones own interpriation,in otherwords diffrent people see and read the standard in diffrent ways,jmo...

While you do have to test for gameness i think a lot of people may take 2 well tested dogs bump,matcch,roll and breed them because they showed well and never quit even being on the bottom. where the show folks may breed for confirmation and bonestructure basically a mellow dog with no kind of fire so to speak. Me personally say i have a gamebred apbt throughout his ped there are some well tested dogs in there. Now is me dog game i dunno will i test more than likely NO. But i do want to know that he has drive so i will probably find a sport to put him in. It's like this i want a truck so i want the blueprint of a truck so it can get built and i not end up with a car same thing goes for apbt and me i want a APBT so why not start off with the blueprint of a true APBT! As far as show-gameness running hand and hand...i think not you release a show pit and a staff and you might have no problem but if you release a true apbt and a show dog of any type you may have a situation on your hand (show ring of course)! A good owner can get a Gamebred APBT and channel the energy and DA to something. The weight pull dogs have to have drive and a uncanny ability to get er done!

Just wandering keith have you ever been to an adba show? and if you havent please maybe your will learn something. there a whole lot of "game bred" show dogs in the ring winnning and i guess yeah your right its your own interpation of the standard but i pretty much put money on it that any of the dogs that win at one of theses adba shows can win at a match. and if your talking about ukc its a joke when it comes to a standard of an apbt.

midwest_showdogs wrote:

Just wandering keith have you ever been to an adba show? and if you havent please maybe your will learn something. there a whole lot of "game bred" show dogs in the ring winnning and i guess yeah your right its your own interpation of the standard but i pretty much put money on it that any of the dogs that win at one of theses adba shows can win at a match. and if your talking about ukc its a joke when it comes to a standard of an apbt.

i was speaking of UKC and the ones that be on TV...now i can dual register my dog with ADBA so i know they have some true pits lol

read between the lines and you get that i think mine is a true pit

midwest_showdogs wrote:

Just wandering keith have you ever been to an adba show? and if you havent please maybe your will learn something. there a whole lot of "game bred" show dogs in the ring winnning and i guess yeah your right its your own interpation of the standard but i pretty much put money on it that any of the dogs that win at one of theses adba shows can win at a match. and if your talking about ukc its a joke when it comes to a standard of an apbt.

adba show,no i have not,
not to many of those around my parts[as far as i know]But if i went to one,i for sure would see dogs from game lines"BUT",just because a dog is from a game blood line does not mean the dog is game,and it is a very bold statement to say any of the winning adba dogs could also win in the box.I wouldnt bet on that one my friend.If gameness had not even been tested for i'd say there would be a better chance of a dog being a cur than game.This goes for all bloodlines considered apbt,even game lines.
Also i'd like to add,im not really interested in testing,nor preserving gameness "per say",i THINK A DOg with extreme drive and heart is close enough for me,since im not fighting dogs,most adba dogs do have a higher degree of heart and drive ill give them that but still it dosent mean the majority of them are game,or even that the majority of dogs out of game breedings between proven performance dogs are game.

[quote="keith"]

midwest_showdogs wrote:

i THINK A DOg with extreme drive and heart is close enough for me,since im not fighting dogs,most adba dogs do have a higher degree of heart and drive ill give them that but still it dosent mean the majority of them are game,or even that the majority of dogs out of game breedings between proven performance dogs are game.

I can agree with this statement i like to see the drive and heart and no give up in my dogs with out fighting them and a gamebred dog isn't always game but they have a higher chance at it than a dog that come from lines and lines of show dogs

just want to know what do u think game is?

I'm quoting because I always seem to word it wrong or skip parts...
Wikipedia-

Game or Gameness is a quality of fighting dogs or working terriers that are selectively bred and conditioned from a very early age to develop traits of eagerness despite the threat of substantive injury. Dogs displaying this trait can also be described as persevering, ready and willing, full of fight, spirited, or plucky.

Dog fighting breeds
In dog fighting breeds gameness is valued as it gives the dog the ability to maintain the attack in baiting, despite ripped flesh, dehydration, exhaustion or broken bones. As one writer describes it, "Game is the dog that won't quit fighting, the dog that'll die in the ring, the dog that'll fight with two broken legs."^[1] The scope and method of training to develop a game dog varies dramatically depending on the level and experience of the dog-fighter.

Working terrier breeds
Pertaining to working terriers and other small hunting dogs, earthdog trials are used to determine the dog's gameness in hunting dangerous pest species underground. The American Working Terrier Association currently offers a Certificate of Gameness (CG) title^[2] as a basic instinct test (meaning that it is done without conditioning/training the dog, to see if the dog naturally exhibits gameness) for working terriers and daschshunds. In the past, the Irish Kennel Club required the now-discarded Teastas Mor certification for champion animals (intended for breeding) which involved "...showing gameness in attacking badgers. Five minutes is the minimum period a terrier shall be in contact with the badger, except when the terrier draws the badger in less time." "Drawing" meant pulling the badger out of the hole. The purpose of the Teastas Mor was to determine the dog's capabilities for work and fitness for breeding, not primarily for entertainment as in the blood-sports of baiting.

Not everybody is a fan of Wikipedia, but I think it works sometimes. I have some friends that consider gameness a strong and fearless drive. A buddy of mine has an APBT from big game lines that he used for cattle hearding, the fact that that dog would crab a bull or a cow by the nose and drop it to the ground was a pretty good test of gameness, IMO

to add on to the strong and fearless drive is a non QUIT attitude...even when things are going it's way like the little engine that could ROFL

nice description of "Gameness" thanks wikipedia

well i beleive that gameness dont always have to do be DA i beleive its a little bit more then that now some DA is a trait of this but its not always the way if u find a hunting dog for instance an blue tick it has crazy game when doing its job and even an retreiver is game when its comes to retieving i dont beilve a bulldog needs to be tested in a box or rolled at all to know of its gameness i beleive you can test gameness with for instance weight pulling if the dog dont quit and is ready untill you say to stop then its game and i think that drive and game would go together u cant have an game dog and it had no drive or drive and no game maybe im wrong but that how i was taught as a child. After 25 yrs with this breed i have found other ways to test for gameness and its not in the box!!!

midwest_showdogs wrote:

well i beleive that gameness dont always have to do be DA i beleive its a little bit more then that now some DA is a trait of this but its not always the way if u find a hunting dog for instance an blue tick it has crazy game when doing its job and even an retreiver is game when its comes to retieving

your confusing prey drive and gameness,a dog must be injured badly and keep going to the point of self sacrifice to be considered game,theres only two levels to game drive,dead dogs and dogs that arent dead yet due to retirement or being picked up,weight pull only proves how much drive a dog has,a weight pull dog very likely would be a cur in the box,so how again would a weight pull dog be game if it would quite while fighting?
Gameness gets throw'n around quite a bit from some soccer mom thinking here hyper active pit/boxer is game because it likes to run to somebody thinking there dogs game because it hangs from the spring pole for 15 minutes at a time and wont quit intill forced.
Hog hunting dosent test gameness either and if gameness only describes a really athletic and determined dog we might as well just throw the term away because every breed has dogs that would fall into that catagory,jmo....

I would think with a game dog one would think that these dogs are emotionally withdrawn from everything from the training and the abuse they suffer to fight in the ring. Ultimately the desire and willingness to please their master would be the reason they fight to the end. Unlike a pull dog that same willingness to please an exceed in the sport is there but pull dogs are not challenged to die in a ring and they don't endure the abuse that a game dog would. There is a big Psychological difference on what these dogs are trained to do. At the end of the day a show dog can still be a family dog these fighting dogs once their spirit is stripped away I don't know if they are ever the same.

I personaly dont believe dogs have emotions or spirits,there just raw instinct and what we have bred and selected for in type and temperment,they definetly dont have emotions that we can equate to human feelings.
Unfortunatly we try and interprit there feelings though human emotion,
thats were we get in to trouble,jmo.

Yeah I can see your point.

i believe if you have a Stratton book you know what a game dog is if you don't have any of his books or any personal experience then don't speak on game dogs and gameness.

A dog has to at LEAST get rolled hard to see if there truly game. not matched because old times didn't run a match with a hope so they bumped (against several dogs some even weighed more) the dog first to check gameness.
WILL HE KEEP FIGHTING or jump the wall lay down turn.

Come On!!! I've seen how game my girls are in the yard unintentionally. I've seen how game my dogs are on the street when BIG stray dogs come running. A roll is 5 minutes, Both my girls fought longer than that while we were trying to break it up.

By the way... To guests of this site,
This is not a site for dog fighters or spectators of fighting. We are simply speaking of incodents and the history of the breed. Thank You

A roll is not five minutes,rolling a dog is about seeing how much punishment a dog can go through with out quiting,its a game test,you cant test for gameness in 5min,no way.As for dogs and emotions,no dogs do not have emotions they are animals and are driven by instinct,what you see as a happy dog is more than likely a animal that is excited and going through a ritual of instict its ancestors went through when the alpha returned from the hunt.
now you can believe your dog has emotions all you want,it ceartily has a brain and feels pain,but it has no realization of anything,it exsist's in the moment and runs on instict,its basically a domesticated wolf.

RedDoggy wrote:

Come On!!! I've seen how game my girls are in the yard unintentionally. I've seen how game my dogs are on the street when BIG stray dogs come running. A roll is 5 minutes, Both my girls fought longer than that while we were trying to break it up.

By the way... To guests of this site,
This is not a site for dog fighters or spectators of fighting. We are simply speaking of incodents and the history of the breed. Thank You

Ok so let me ask you this what makes a dog truly game the fact that he dies in a ring? That is the trueness of game? And do you think that just because your dog comes from a game bloodline that makes him/her truly game?

Redoggy I can relate to what your saying because I have seen my dog go after and try to attack dogs out the blue without any warning or reason or trigger. I don't think you have to read a book or fight your dog to know what gameness is or if your dog is game. JMO