The Breed
The American Staffordshire Terrier
Standard:
http://www.fci.be/Nomenclature/Standards/286g03-de.pdf
The "AmStaff"
The American Staffordshire Terrier is a very very special and great breed for me. The best one in the world! AmStaffs are tipical terriers, if they dont want to do something you can take all your power to make them do it, but the won´t... But they are very very intelligent dogs. The can be used for nearly ever kind of work and dogsport. Rescue dog, protection training or simply as family and sport dog, she love all kind of activity.
A AmStaff is a power machine. Even if they are pretty small, they have amazing power.
They are the best family dogs ever. They love children and will never show any aggression against them. They love to be surrounded by their humans.
If you want a dog that is sleeping the whole day on the couch, than the AmStaff is not the right decision. Of course there are days where my dogs are just lazy and lie around in the house, but the next day has to be full of action again. They love to move and they are very atheltic dogs. They have to be also worked mentally not only physically. They are not dogs that you put in a dog park and let them play.
Before you think of getting an AmStaff, you have to know that you have a lot of responsibility now. In this times where our breed is called bad biting and fighting dogs, we have to fight against that, and show to the world how wonderful our breed ist. We shouldnt give new stories to the newspapers about how bad our dogs are. It is in the interesting of every owner of an AmStaff to keep the image clean! That means that we have to stick to the rules and take care that our dogs are trained good and that they are good members of our community. American Staffordshire Terriers are often not great friends with other dogs. Thats normal because of their history. Also this you should know before you buy an AmStaff. If you think you are fit enough for this special breed than you will have big joy and fun every day with your four legged friend.
The appearence
AmStaffs are pretty small dogs (males 46-48cm, females 43-46 cm) with sporty and athletic body and pretty strong head. There are several coat colours (red, brindle, blue, fawn, black..) and different markings. The standard says that more than 80% white and black and tan should not be encouraged, but that doesnt mean that it is forbidden to breed those colours.
The most important thing on the American Staffordshire Terrier is his powerful and pretty head. The muzzle should be as long as the overhead. The eyes should be dark and his expression should always be proud and strong. Years ago nearly all dogs of this breed where cropped on their ears. This is forbidden in many countries today, but in many countries still usual. I love cropped ears and i think that they look really beautiful. But a nice carried rose ear could look also as beautiful as nice cropped ears.
The Amstaff should always have strong muscels. It is really a wonder for me how fast this breed gains muscles. But you a problem is that many people think that a fat dog is a powerful strong dog, but thats not the truth! A fat dog is not a healthy dog!
The health:
All in all the AmStaff is a pretty healthy breed. But of course there are some illnesses the breed can suffer. I want to give a short overwiew about some of them:
1) Hips dysplasia
Its a pity to see that more and more AmStaffs today have not so nice hips, that means they have hips dysplasia. What means that the hips are not set perfectly. The hips dysplasia is seperated in 5 grades. A,B,C,D and E, where A ist the best and E the worst one. Our breed has a big positive effect in case of hips dysplasia and that is that they are very strong with good muscels so they will often not feel any pain, even when their hips are really bad. But i am one of those who thinks that we sould ONLY breed with healthy dogs and keep in mind that we have a healthy breed and should keep it healthy!
2) Elbow Dysplasia
Our breed is not often affected by elbow dysplasia, but anyway I test my dogs for it, to be sure. It is the same like hips dysplasia but in the elbows.
3) Ataxia
The cerebellar Ataxia in American Staffordshite Terrier is a neurodegenerative illness. If a dog is affected by Ataxia than he looses his ability to move well more and more. Symptoms are shown mostly during her 3rd and 5th birhtday. The first signs of Ataxia are a not normal movement, problems to keep the head in normal position and so on. All those things get worst when the time moves on and this illness always ends with the death of the animal. There is a test for Ataxia where you can test it your dog is clear, affected or carrier of this desease.
If a dog is carrier he carrier one normal and one mutated gene in his body, and can also give carriers when he or she is used in breeding. A clear dog has two healthy and normal genes and can never give affected or carrier dogs. An affected dog has two mutated genes in his body and should never be used in breeding, even if he only gives carrier when you breed him with a clear dog! But I think anyway all afftected dogs should never be used! Carriers should only be used if it is really really necessary.
4) Color Dilution Alopecia
Nearly nobody knows her, but when you guess me, she is one of the worst deseases in dogs and if we dont take care she can destroy our breed in the future.
Our breed is common in many different colors and markings. The color “BLUE” is became very popular during the last years and people love blue dogs. Some of them call them “blueline”. But this is a wrong term! Blue is not a line, it is simply a color.
The color blue will never never never occur in my kennel, because blue dogs have many big problems because of their coat colour. Blue is caused by the dilute gene. This gene makes black coat lighter because pigmentation gets light and than the coat occurs blue or grey. Blue dogs often have several allergies and big problmes with skin and coat. The biggest problem is the color mutatant alopecia. There the hair gets imflamed as soon as it grows out of the skin of the dog and it breaks. So it can never grow again in normal lenght and the dog will be naked on some areas of his body.
All those things are for me to risky to breed with blue and other lightened colored dogs! A breeder has the duty to breed healthy dogs and to improve the breed! Where is the improvement if you risk bad skin and coat problems? I think nowehere!
