Guy Verschatse - Vom Schloss Hexental (Belgium)

INTERVIEW FOR THE FINNISH ROTTWEILER CLUB (Taken by Mrs. Tina Finn on 30.03.2005)

T.F. Your parents owned Dobermann’s and even bred a litter. How did You come to choose the Rottweiler as your breed ?

G.V. The Dobermann was not the type of character that I wanted. They were sharp and not much self assured, and above all very nervous. I did like the look (I still am of the docked ones) of a Dobe and that’s why my choice felt on the Rottweiler as they had several things in common: also guard-utility dogs, same color of coat, docked tail, German origines. They were much more confident and self assured, were not nervous at all and were more powerful which I really respect in a Rottie. After some research I’ve found two Rottweiler owners in my town, one had a Benno v Allgauer Tor daughter and the other one had a rare Austrian bloodline male. This male impressed me so much that I was into the breed forever. If d’Havilland (callname Igor) was a medium sized, very dry but athletic, super tough guard dog from a local wood supplier. The next thing was to find a Rottweiler as soon as possible. This made me make the wrong decision and I’ve bought the first available female puppy in a “puppy-factory”…

T.F. The vom Schloss Hexental-kennel was established in 1991, what led to you becoming a breeder ?

G.V. Because end of the 80s there were almost no Rottweilers competing in Belgium in the SCHH program. We had to train and compete in GSD- and All breed-clubs (who were only existing out of GSD’s). This concurrence was very tough towards our Rottweiler and the genepool in those days in Belgium was very poor on working quality. This was the main reason to start our own kennel and to breed the Rottweiler who would be able to compete against the GSD. We imported two bitches, one from Holland but from full German parents :Anka v Boyapark, HD/A (BS.Chris v Obergrombacher Schloss x D.CH.Boya vd Rheinwiesen) and shortly after her: Froni vd Siegbrucke, HD/B, BH, ZTP, GEK (KS.Danjo v Schwaiger Wappen x Dixi vd Siegbrucke). Those two bitches were our foundation, they produced many important dogs for the future to come. Anka was at the base of the Polderbos-Kennel as she was the dam of CH.Raika v Schloss Hexental, IPO1. Raika produced IFR.W.CH.Tron, IFR.W.CH.SCHH3 Tyson and CH.Umbro vh Polderbos. Froni was at the base of our own kennel true CK’99.Queeny and Saaike v Schloss Hexental. Queeny produced USRC.N.CH.SCHH3 Varrak v Schloss Hexental. Froni was also the dam of Quinta v Schloss Hexental of the Heyverhaus-Kennel. Quinta is the grand-dam of IFR.W.CH.SCHH3 Yanos v Heimat Dior, to name a few…

T.F. Tell us a little bit about your history in dog sports prior to establishing “vom Schloss Hexental”.

G.V. Back in 1986 we bought our first Rottweiler: Sheba van Rialfo, she was a bitch without FCI-pedigree (born in a puppy-factory) and turned out dysplastic. However with her my interest in dogsport has been waken up. A good friend of mine did Obedience with his Dobermann in a small local club and invited me to go and watch them training. Because Sheba had severe HD, I was unable to do serious training with her and this made me look out better the next time. In 1987 we bought Nero vd Markenrichter after a long search. Nero (callname Conan) was born in Holland but out of full German working line parents. His sire was the great Ambassador v Freienfels, double Landessieger Rheinland-Pfalz SCHH3. With Conan I started in Belgian Obedience because my girlfriend Katrien (who is now my wife) was afraid when I would do SCHH our dog would become aggressive. This is a fairytale that most people who are unaware of dogsport think. I passed his exam Obedience GP/Brevet and when Conan’s age was 2 years I could convince Katrien to train SCHH. My dog and myself get bored in the Obedience. After 5 months of training we achieved the SCHH1, 5 months later the SCHH2 and then it became more difficult as Conan was not a hard dog. Because of being afraid of the stick-hits we had to train and use all our imagination to make him succeed for the SCHH3. We went several long weekends to Germany to train with Solveig Doderer (owner/breeder from Ambassador v Freienfels, the sire of our dog) and her Helper Andreas Oberst, who was a “Lehrhelfer” (Helper teacher) of the SV. We learned a complete other vision of training as what we’ve seen in Belgium by that time. These other methods were useful for Conan and he did his SCHH3 a few weeks later. However he was not hard enough to compete at a serious level. We learned a lot by training this type of dog and our next dog: Magnus vom Glucksstern (CH.Ilco v Fusse der Eifel x CH.Fem v Luxemburger Landchen) was able to compete at a higher level as he was hard as nails. Maybe too hard, he was a real dominant male and also became a successfull studdog. We had a lot of fun with this boy…

T.F. How would you define a good breeding stock and what are the qualities you like to look for when breeding?

G.V. The bloodline is very important for me, I prefer a good pedigree and average dog above a good dog with average pedigree. For me it’s important that my breeding stock is different as my concurrence, it is important that I bring something NEW to the genepool and not duplicate what so many other breeders did before me. The art is to find different lines who are as good and are maybe better as what is popular at the moment. Sometimes we did a combination who was great on paper but turned out wrong, however we have always taken full responsibility of our “mistakes”. We did not march the easy road, we have taken well known risks and sometimes it turned out great, sometimes not so good… For me good breeding stock are bitches with good and unique pedigrees who are tall and healthy and have above all, a stable character with lots of prey/balldrive.
The male character is not so important as the female character because I’m convinced that the mother is responsible for 70-80% of the puppies behavior.

T.F. What do you feel are the highlights of your work as a breeder?

G.V. This is hard to answer as we are very proud on our kennel and all our dogs. It makes us also proud to see the offspring doing good and also the offspring from our offspring. Some Hexental dogs are an important base of several populations in Belgium, Holland, France, Norway and USA to name a few countries. A highlight is also the respect that we received from a few people who thank me to keep “the Working Rottweiler” alive. In the beginning our aim was to have Hexental dogs in all continents from the world which we made come true several years ago. At this moment we have dogs all over the world, from Finland till Australia…

T.F. What are your thoughts on the Rottweiler today noting his…
Working qualities:

G.V. I see the increasing interest for “extreme showline Rottweilers”. This is like a disease for the working qualities. The “Yugo dogs” (Eastern European) who are in my opinion “over typical” and have a very soft character, are the dead of the working Rottweiler. The Rottweiler has already a handicap with his size and weight, but these dogs are a nightmare for the working enthusiast. Till about 5-8 years ago I had a sparkling hope for the working capacities of our breed. We saw several very good scoring Rottweilers on “all breed competitions” and the overall grip on the sleeve became better because of selection on this. Belgium had several Rottweilers who could compete against any breed, however 90% from dogs from our bloodlines (but not necessary with our kennel name). Than the interest of “big heads & big bones” came and they became fashion in Belgium and all over the world…

Character:

G.V. The old Rottweiler was a stubborn, tough and brutal dog. At this moment the Rottweiler is much more obedient and trainable, but unfortunately by these traits not so hard anymore. The showlines are even very unsure and weak, they have no nerves anymore.

Appearance:

G.V. The fashion created a type who is “over typical”, the head look like a Bullmastiff and the bone strength is too much Mollosoide. This will result in dentition faults and respiration problems and slow down the working drives. We should strive more to maintain the standard, and keep the working ability as much as possible.

Health:

G.V. Working dogs are healthy dogs, otherwise they cannot train 2-3-4 times a week the routine for SCHH or another sport. The more show influence, the less healthy and the slower the dogs will be. Some bloodlines have real ligament problems, at this moment there is no examination on this and I see it as a real weak point of our breed. I’m proud on the fact that none of our breeding stock had or produced ligament problems.

T.F. If you could pick just one Rottweiler that represents the ideal Rottweiler to you, who would it be and why ? (If there isn´t one, what are the qualities that you would use to build the ultimate Rottweiler ?)

G.V. Our upcoming stud “Conan vom Schloss Hexental, HD/Frei, ED/2, RST, TSG (Social Behavior Test)”, he’s very tall, athletic, tons of prey/balldrive, bites always full and hard, looks very good, is very friendly towards people and other dogs and above all he has an awesome and unique pedigree ! His sire is one of the best working Austrian Army Service-dogs “Eliott von Kaisersteinbruch” and his dam is a sister to the famous D.CH.Ambassador von Shambala “Askija von Shambala”. The sire of Askija is also one of my favorites: D.CH.Balou vom Silberblick, also Balou’s grandfather Carlo von Hamburger Michel was one of the most impressive dogs ever. We are planning to use Conan on most of our bitches.

T.F. Are there any legislative restrictions on keeping a Rottweiler in Belgium ? If yes, kindly specify.

G.V. No, we have a lot of freedom concerning the law on keeping dogs. A few years ago after a deadly incident the Belgian Government voted a law to create a “potential Dangerous Breeds-list” of 13 breeds. Our Rottweiler was part of this list but with the efforts of the Belgian Kennel Club and the Belgian Rottweiler Club this list was destroyed shortly after. At this moment it’s calm around the hype of “dangerous dogs” but we are sure not much should happen to have the trash all over again. We cross our fingers…

T.F. Your thoughts on the future of the breed?

G.V. I think the biggest racist accusements are over, the Kennel Clubs and the Breed Clubs do all what’s in their power to put our breed in the positive light. This by doing all kind of Sociability Tests, Breedstandard Tests, motivates the people to promote Rescue Dog program, and so on. With these positive image tests the society will become more dog-friendly and forget the previous problems (we hope…).
However the future of the Rottweiler as Service- or Sport dog is in big danger ! The influence of the showlines becomes bigger and bigger, the Eastern European bloodlines are spreading very fast because of their fashionable looks. People should be aware that those countries have no Breed Tests or no control at all on the character or health of those lines. Most of them are even having no tattoo or microchip! I suggest if people still want to deal with those dogs to ask a DNA proof.

T.F. Any additional comments or thoughts ?

G.V. I hope the breeders follow their heart and not only their eyes and see the importance not to use “extremes” who have no reliable backgrounds. The German/Austrian genepool is still the best and most safe (read “correct”) genepool in the world. The ADRK is the most severe and most documented breedclub in the world, the only bad thing about the ADRK is that they have a closed genepool. They are not allowed to use Belgian- or other foreign dogs in their breeding. Many of the recent popular studdogs are build up all over the same studs such as Hassan, Doc, Noris, Chris, Rick. The only alternatives are the pure working lines such as Arri, Aki, Ken Sternbogen, etc. So for the breeders among you, please continue to breed the “total Rottweiler”. Our breed is a working- and utility breed and it should stay like this. I always hope that the good people (breeders) will be rewarded in the end…

Don’t give up !