Breeding Dogo is Crazy!

 
It has been one hell of a week. Dante has been nuts and acting like a fool, he is a total basket case. I really wish I would have checked into breeding more before I started, In life sometimes we think we know more than we do and then we found out that we know nothing.

Baby Dante

 

The first thing that I learned is that these dogs need to be away from people when your female is in heat. Male dogs seam to go nuts with all of the testosterone in their system. Dante who is a really sweet dog became very aggressive and unpredictable. He is now outside until Faith is done with her heat cycle. I am very disappointed in myself for not reading up on this more, I could have save myself a lot of heartache if I just would have. For all of you out there who want a Dogo Argentino please do your homework and just when you think you know enough, do some more. There is a lot of good information out there and you need to read up on it. You don't want to go through all of the time and expense of getting one of these dogs only to have it end up going back to the breeder or to the pound. There are so many Dogo's in shelters all over the US because people thought they could handle them and could not. Also once you have one you must train, train and than train some more, your dogs life just might depend on it.

Breeding My Dogo Argentino

Well tomorrow is the big day for Faith and Dante they will be allowed to breed. It has been hell around here for the last week waiting for Faith to be ready. Dante has been going nuts trying to get to her and Faith has looked pretty funny running around with my underwear on her.

  

Dante The Stud

Dante with a cut on his head, he tried to got under a barbed wire fence.

Dante Relaxing.

Dante the Nutbar.

Dante's Morning Stretch.

Dogo Argentino in Heat

Well it had happened Faith my 3 year old female started her heat cycle four days ago and it's been a mad house. Dante is going nuts trying to get to her and she is bleeding up a storm, Yuk. I had to make some doggie diapers so that she is not getting it all over the house. I cut up some of my underwear and put some maxy pads in them, they work really well. I am keeping the two away from each other, but it's not easy. If all goes well I should have puppies in a couple of months, but with my luck who knows. I will keep everyone posted, well that's if anyone is reading.

Dogo Argentino Homemade Dog Food

Homemade Dog Food
Ingredients
20 lbs of Chicken
(If your dog has a weight problem remove the skin from the chicken before you cook it,)
10 lbs of Deer or Pork or more Chicken ...
(Do not used beef because beef has too many growth hormones in it.)
10 lbs of rice
(Cooked more than if you were cooking for yourself .)
2 cups of oat meal
5 lbs of potatoes
1 lbs of fresh carrots
½ of pound of fresh green beans
4 bananas
3 cans of corn (blended)
1 can of corn (not blended)
3 cans of peas (blended)
1 can of peas (not blended)
3 cans of green beans (blended)
(blending the veggies help with digestion)
10 dogie vitamins
4 scoops of super greens

Cook the chicken and deer in a large pot at 350 degrees for three and a half to four hours
(I don't have a pot large enough to cook it all together so I have to use two pots.)
Cook the rice in a rice cooker and divide it into 3 pots
Cook the oat meal and divide into the 3 pots
Cook the potatoes, carrots and the green beans and divide into the pots
Blend the corn, green beans, peas, bananas, vitamins and the super greens in a blender and devide into the pots.
Divide the can of corn and can of peas into the pots to help clean out the dog digestive system.
Cut up the deer or other meat and de-bone the chicken divide into the 3 pots and also the gravy.
Mix everything together and put into containers.
This a big recipe for 2 big dogs and a growing puppy who eats 3 to 4 times a day. Depending on the size of your dog or dogs you might want to cut down or add to this recipe.
With every new food you need to slowly change over to the new food, when you first start to make food for your dogs you want to slowly introduce each ingredient one at a time to make sure the dogs do not have a bad reaction to the food. There are a bunch of recipes out there and you might want to try a couple until you find the right one for your dog and than stick with it. I also give my dogs a cup of yogurt a week to help with digestion.

Dog Argentino Ear Taping

Rose Ears were cropped a week ago and everything is looking great. As soon as they healed enough I taped them. I left the tape on for 3 days and today I took it off because she is going to the Vet tomorrow to have the stiches taken out and Dr. Dicky will tape them again. Here are some picture of her ears.

Rosie with her ears taped

Rosie Learning to Stack

Rosie with taped ears

Rosie after the tape was took off.

Rosie with the puppy dog eyes

Side View of her ears.

Don't ever take your dog to the Oak View Animal Clinic in Pea Ridge Arkansas

Diego My First Dogo Argentino 

Diego was the first Dogo Argentino that I got about 5 years ago. I remember picking him up at the airport like it was yesterday. He was this cute little thing with a patched eye, at first I was upset because the breeder did not tell me I was not getting an all white dogo. It only took a couple of days and than I started to really like the patch, he was really cool looking. Diego was my first so I had to learn all about Dogo Argentinos wail training him. A couple of weeks after I got him he started to get a bump on his head, so I contacted the breeder and the Oak View Animal Clinic in Pea Ridge Arkansas . I took him in and had him checked out by Dr. Karen Sherman, she said that it was nothing, that he must have hit his head on something but I told the Doctor that he had not and also that the bump was hard, once again she told me not to worry about it. So I told the breeder that Dr. Karen Sherman said that it was nothing to worry about, but that never sat right with me.
I took Diego to training class's and trained him at home until he would listen to all my commands. I spent hundreds of hours training him and thousands of dollars bringing him up. When I got the dog I had told the breeder that I wanted a dog I could show and breed, they gave me a price so I thought that is what I got, but when it came time to get the papers for Diego they said no that I first had to get him fixed and that is not what we talked about. New to the Dogo world I did not know that a $2200 dog did not come with papers. It really does not matter now because even if he had papers it would not have changed the outcome.
As Diego grew so did the bump and also Diego's behavior grow more and more erratic. He started fight with my other dog and not listening. I worked with him trying to get him right but still things got worse. I took back to the Oak View Animal Clinic a bunch of times to have him checked out but the doctor just kept telling me that he was fine and he was not fine. After some time the fights got so bad that I had to send my other dog to live with my brother.
When Diego was 19 months old I took him in and had him fixed, thinking that would calm him down and that is when everything went to hell. About a week later I found Diego on the landry room floor having a seizure but at that time I did not know that was what he was having. A couple of weeks earlier I got a shock collar to put on my because of his behavior. I did not turn it up high and just used it if he was doing something really bad. So when I found him on the floor I thought that the collar had shorted out and almost killed him. I called the company and was really mad, they said that they were really sorry and to send it back so they could test it. They also told me that the collars don't give off a big enough zap to hurt the dog and that this had never happened before. So I sent the collar in and said to myself that I would never use a shock collar again.
A couple of days later I found him outside having another seizure and that is when I took him to the Vet, I feel really dumb now, thinking it was the collars but I had never seen a epileptic seizure before. I took him to the Vet and they said that he had epilepsy. They gave me a bunch of pills and charged me a bunch of money and I took him home. The Meds did not work, so I took Him back to the Vet and they gave me bigger pills and charged me some more money and I took him home. This went on for two weeks and still they were not stopping and every time that he would have one he would not remember me and would come after me. My baby was scaring the shit out of me. I know that he was not himself after he had a seizure but he could have killed me. So the day before he died the vet gave me stronger pills and some kind of downer to give him hoping that would work and it didn't. That night at 8:00 PM he started to have seizures, one after the other until about 2:00 AM. He would crap himself and than seize in it, it was a big mess and I felt so bad for him. I had given him his meds but he kept throughing them up. At 2:00 I got the seizures to stop and put and bunch of towels in the landry room so that he could go to sleep. I was awoken at 5:30 because he was winning so I went to check on him and he was covered in pee, so the seizures must have started again. I gave him his meds and they would not stop, my wife and I where trying the best we could to keep him clam and to stop the seizures, so that we could take him to the Vet. Every time we thought they were stopping and we could  get him to the Vet they would start again. At that time we did not have a crate to put him so we could not safely transport  him, so the first thing we did when we got our new Dogo was buy a big crate. We wanted to take him to the Vet and have him put down because I was never going to let this happen to that poor dog again. That dog was in misery and there was nothing we could do for him. At 12:00 noon my wife and I decided that it was time that I got my rifle and put my baby down, but I did not have to, at 12:15 Diego had his last seizure and died. I called my nephews to come over and help me bury him the entire time I was digging his grave I cried, I really loved that big goofy dog.
I took Diego to a different Vet to have an  necropsy done on him. Dr. Dicky checked him out and told us that he had a brain tumor. It's funny that one of the first thing this new Vet did was to X-ray Diego head and he found the tumor right away. If Dr. Karen Sherman would have just done that in the first place I could have put him down and saved us and the poor dog a lot of hell. After his death I e-mailed the breeder and told them what had happened. They contacted the doctor and than called me back, they told me that the Oak View Animal Clinic and the vet were worthless and to never take another dog there. The drilled Dr. Karen on why she never x-rayed the dog and all she could say was that she thought it was a bump. The Breeders told me that because I had contacted them and took the dog to the vet that they would replace the dog. It took them about a year but they did make good and sent me Dante. To all of you people out there new to the Dogo world I hope that none of you have to go through this.

Diego The Day We Picked Him Up From The Airport.

My Daughter With Diego

Diego with his ears taped up

Baby Diego

Diego All grown Up a Couple of Weeks Before He Died.

Custom Dogo Argentino Dog Cages

Last week I got sick of having huge dog cages in my living room. When I just had Dante it was no big deal having a two and a half by three and half foot cage in the living room, but with three dogos there was just not enough room. My TV is built into the wall with shelves all around it and there was a lot of dead space behind it. So, I got the ideal of building the dog cages into the wall to free up the space in my living room. The first thing I did was go to Lowes, there I got half inch rebar, paneling, paint, latches, cheap wood flooring, and a bunch of other things that I thought I might need. Here is what I did.

First I cut the rebar with my die grinder.

I welded it together and added hinges and a latch.

The hinge is just an old door hinge that I cut and welded on.

The Latch is a fence latch from Lowes

Finished door

I cut out the shelves and the wall underneath the TV.

I installed cheap wood flooring on the floors and the walls so that the cages would be easy to clean.

I made the cages out of plywood.

The first cage installed, this is Dante's cage, but  it is bigger so I will used it for mama and puppies when they come.

Installing the smaller cages

Smaller Cages installed.

The unfinished Cages.

Painted the cages and the wall to match.

Painted Cages.

Reinstalled and Painted the trim.

Installed gates and the puppies.

Dante was not happy!

Finished

Dogo Argentino Ear Cropping The Correct Way.

Rosie came home last night and her ears are looking great. It will be a week before I tape them if it is needed and as it looks like I might have to. When Dante came home his looked the same way and I ended up having to tape up one of his ears. Now to keep Dante and Faith away from her, they want to lick poor Rosie's ears off.

Rosie's Last Photo With Floppy Ears. On Her Way To The Vet.

Rosie's Fist Photo With Cropped Ears!

Sleepy Dog.

Rosie is So Cute!

Dogo Argentino Ear Cropping! Little Rosie

Today Rosie learned how to speak, it was so cute, she just got it and than would do it perfect every time. There is nothing like feeling when after all the hard work that you and your dog have done that they start to be molded into the great dog that you are going to have in the future. Dogo Argentino's  have to be trained, well all dogs need to be but when you have a 100 pound ball of muscle it is a must. Also training is bonding and you have to bond with your dog if you want them to listen to you, they are not going to listen to someone they don't respect.
Rosie is going to the Animal Medical Center in Rogers Arkansas tomorrow to have her ears cropped. Dr Dicky does an amazing job on Dogo's ears. I have seen a lot of really bad ear crops to know what a great job he did on Dante and it was his first Dogo Argentino. So these are the last pictures of her with her cute floppy ears. I hope today was a wonderful day.

Everybody Wanted a Picture With Rosie Before She Got Her Ears Done!

Sophia and Rosie

Violet and Rosie

Heather and Rosie

Dad and Rosie