The Rottweiler is a dog of many talents: he’s rough ,strong and relentless guarder of love ones. Yet it is  humble, ready for anything; easy to train, if treated with respect and consistency; loyal and protective, at times to a fault; strong, yet gentle; aloof and dignified with strangers and playful and loving to his family. In short, the Rottie is the typical “tough guy with a heart of gold.” This steadfast canine soldier developed from the Molossus dog of Italy, a Mastiff-type dog bred to fight lions in Roman amphitheaters and serve the army in its campaigns. The progenitors of the Rottie traveled with the conquerors, driving and protecting cattle that fed the warriors on their long and arduous treks through inhospitable terrain. Dogs often stayed behind as the armies pressed on, breeding with the native canines and producing working dogs suited to particular climates, conditions, and occupations. The Romans crossed the Alps into southern Germany in the First Century on the road to conquering all of Europe. The Romans established the town of Arae Flaviae as a fortified cultural and administrative center. The red-tiled roofs of the most important buildings gave the village its German name, Rottwil (red villa), later changed to Rottweil.

 

The town grew in importance, and by the Middle Ages, it was a bustling center of commerce and justice. Cattlemen used the descendants of the Roman dogs to bring the herds to the butcher for sale and to guard their purses of money on the way home, and the butchers in turn used the dogs to pull the carts carrying the meat. The butchers developed a larger strain of dogs for draft work, but it is the smaller herding-type Rottweilers that are most popular today. Eventually, donkeys replaced Rottweilers as city cart draft animals. The growing prominence of the railroad for shipping freight as well as transporting people led to the outlawing of cattle drives through German towns. Since dogs were prized more for the work they did than the companionship they provided, Rottweilers declined in population; in 1900, only a single Rottie bitch was recorded in all of Rottweil. The breed’s resurgence began a few years into the 20th Century when Rotties were recognized as potential police dogs for their intelligence, loyalty, and strength. The rest is history.

 

In 1921, after several years of squabbles among fanciers, the Allgemeiner Deutscher Rottweiler Klub formed with the motto “Rottweiler breeding is working dog breeding.” No Rottweiler can have a German championship without first proving his mettle as a working dog. The Rottie came to the US with a German emigrant, probably in the late 1920s. The first litter was whelped in 1930, and the first dog registered by the American Kennel Club in 1931. The original stock in this country came from Germany, but breeding requirements in the US were not as strict as in the homeland. The breed marked time until after WWII, when it began a steady rise in popularity as an obedience dog. In more recent years, German-bred dogs have achieved a level of attention as more Rottie owners get involved in Schutzhund or protection work with their dogs. German breeders still insist on working ability in their dogs and championships are withheld if the dog cannot prove himself in the field as well as the show ring.