Rottweiler dogs are being trained to be the aggressive animal of choice for home protection in the 1990s, much as pit bulls were in the '80s, the Michigan Humane Society and breeders warn.
Back-yard breeders and puppy-mill operators are increasingly mating and raising the dogs to enhance aggressiveness, said Humane Society Executive Director Gary Tiscornia."The Rottweiler is currently the dog for the macho members of society looking for a silver bullet on a leash," he said Sunday.
"It's not the dog's fault, it's what people are doing to them," said Evelyn Ellman, a Rottweiler breeder from Battle Creek.
She said she gets about 10 calls a week from people asking if they can buy her "killer dogs." She said she hangs up on them.
"My dogs are raised to be sweet and lovable," she said. "But when a Rottweiler goes bad, so help you God, it could sever your hand from your arm in one crunchy bite."
Tiscornia said, in a Humane Society newsletter, that five Rottweilers attacked a Detroit pedestrian last winter, leaving the man badly mauled.
The Humane Society expects attacks on people to increase as the big black dogs become more popular, Tiscornia said, partly because the breed is becoming "a symbol of security in this crime-ridden world."
The aggressiveness problem may even cause the Humane Society to stop putting up Rottweilers for adoption, he said.
The group already prohibits its affiliates from letting people adopt pit bulls, which gained a deadly reputation in recent years after a number of vicious attacks on people across the country.
People are turning to Rottweilers because "the pit bull trend has run its course - a lot of cities have enacted ordinances against pit bulls," said Ron Baluet of the Humane Society.
Ellman said Rottweilers are being abused and misused by irresponsible people out to make a fast buck.
"It began six or seven years ago when drug dealers discovered Rottweilers," he said. "They wanted to find the most aggressive Rottweilers to mate with an extremely aggressive female, which used to be hard to find.
"That way, when the police come and find three snarling jobs jumping at the door, (the drug dealers) have time to flush their stash," she said.
Rottweilers "go bad" when they are irresponsibly bred and not socialized correctly from puppyhood, which takes a professional trainer, Ellman said.