rosalee said:
hi Renee, nice to hear from you. a question for you, does the fila have the same personality traits as the amstaff and also does the shepherd mix have more dog taits or more wolf traits. oh sorry thats two questions! i,ve never known or indeed ever met a fila, or dogo argentino for that matter but no doubt in the right hands they can be beautiful dogs.
Sorry it's taken me a while to answer you, Rosalee. I've started this twice and my connection dropped out and I lost it!
I'm not sure if the Fila has the same personality traits as ANYTHING! (lol) I'm not even sure at this point if any two Filas have any personality traits in common. The first one we had, Buffy, was a classic "hard" Fila, bursting with the infamous ojeriza, or innate distrust of strangers, from the day we brought her home. We don't know if Shiva has that distrust of strangers or not - she's never met a stranger. She's a HUGE, friendly baby at 9 months and over 120 pounds, but several Fila experts have warned me that she could come into her temperament when she matures. Little Kharma is from the same bloodlines as Buffy was, and is more distant from strangers, although not as standoff-ish at 3 months as Buffy was. She is fearless, though. She was only about 11 weeks old the first time she got zapped by the electric fence, and instead of running away she went back and bit it - twice! They are supreme guard dogs - not attack dogs - and socialization is very important for them as they will use their own judgement about a situation and so must have a firm grasp of what is "normal" and what is a threat. They are very obedient to their family, and want to spend every moment at your side. The proverb in Brazil is "faithful as a Fila," and I've learned that they set a high standard indeed. They were originally bred to herd cattle on the fazendas in Brazil and hunt jaguar. We use ours on the farm to herd cattle and frighten the coyotes away. I've loved German Shepherds since I was a little girl and never would have dreamed I would fall in love with something like these big, jowly, droopy eyed dogs, but I have. I still have to have a German Shepherd in my life, though. They keep things so balanced and normal.
Bimmer has only a small percentage of wolf blood, but at times it shows rather dramatically. He can be incredibly ferocious when one of us (including the other dogs) is threatened. He is also more shy of people than a German Shepherd would be, and does not like to enter strange buildings. He's also a frighteningly efficient hunter and eats what he kills. His legs are a little longer, and he has some looser skin around his neck and is much quicker than a dog of his type, and you should see him jump and climb. He has no fear of heights at all and is completely comfortable walking a beam in the barn or jumping from one 18 foot high stack of hay bales to another. And do you remember the line in Little Red Riding Hood, "Grandmother, what big teeth you have!"? Other dogs tend to defer to him, too. He's the soul of good nature and sweetness with baby calves, though, and is a big help herding the cows. He's just a really neat dog; one of a kind, and so very loving with us, although he will discipline the pups (without ever biting no matter how much they aggravate him) when they need it. If I tell one of them to do something and they don't respond quickly enough to suit him, he gets after them. Shiva is more than twice his size now, but when he barks at her, she straightens up immediately!