Jasmine Passed her Temperament test!

August 2, 2008

Here are some photos of Jasmine taking her temperament test put on by the Associated Rottweilers Fanciers of Northern California, and the American Temperament Test Society. It was a very warm day at about 100 degrees.

On deck, waiting for her turn in the  ring.

Because of the large field and the cones set up on the course, she thinks that she is going to get to go lure coursing and so is looking for the "bunny".

In the ring at the starting line.

The first two stations are the "neutral stranger and the "friendly stranger". Because she was so busy looking for the lure she totally ignored the strangers, and was still looking for the "bunny". Consequently we didn't get any photos of those first two stations in the test.

This is the third station. A metal bucket of rocks is rattled behind a blind and then set down in the dogs path. The judges are looking at how well the dog recovers from being startled. Jasmines response is ideal. Investigating the bucket to the point of even putting her head in the bucket to see what it is.

The fourth station. Three shots are fired from behind a blind. The dog is judged on how they recover from the startle from the noise and if they investigate. Jasmine was curious and did try to see what caused the noise.

The fifth station. An umbrella is suddenly opened in the dogs path. Again, they are judged on how well the recover from the startle. Jasmine's response was ideal.

She was startled, but immediately moved forward to investigate and once she had investigated she was unbothered by the umbrella.

The sixth station. This station is a combination of two different footings. The first is plastic that has been laid on the ground. This is testing the dogs reactions to something they can see, hear and feel. The ideal response is the dog shows interest and curiosity about the footing, but recovers from any uneasiness to move confidently over the obstacles. The second obstacle is an Xpen that is nailed flat on the ground. She moved over it so quickly that we didn't catch any photos of that part of this station. But you can see that she showed plenty of curiosity about the plastic, and she investigated both the plastic and the rocks holding the plastic down.

Here is is investigating a rock that is holding the plastic down.

The seventh station. This station is a combination of stimuli. The first is a stranger who is dressed oddly moving across the path, acting drunk and making a lot of noise. The second part is the stranger noticing the dog and handler and starting to yell at them. The third part is the stranger approaching in an aggressive and threatening manner, slapping a stick on the ground and yelling.

In the above picture the stranger is moving across our path, but has not yet "noticed" us standing there.

The stranger has noticed us and is now approaching in the aggressive/threatening manner. Jasmine has now stood, and is facing the stranger down. The stranger move in only over a specific distance, and then turns around and leaves. As he took his last step towards us, I saw Jasmine come up on her toes, and start to "light up" at that point the stranger turned around and left. I am incredibly proud of how well she responded to all the stations.

At the beginning of the test there is a walk through for the handlers so that each station is explained, and also it is explained at each station what the judges are looking for, and what responses are acceptable and what would be a fail. The dog must pass every station. If they fail even one then they will fail the test. The judges score each station from one to ten. With a ten being the best possible score. It was also explained that they are really looking for the average scores, as a dog that scored a ten on every station would be difficult to live with, because they would be very high energy and would be bouncing off the walls.

At the end of Jasmine's test, the head tester said "I just want to ask one question. How do you live with this dog?" Jasmine scored at the top of every station except for the first two. And so, he felt that she must be so high in energy that she would be difficult to live with. I think there is a flaw here, as although Jasmine IS a high energy dog, she is easy to live with and often will snuggle next to me on the couch in the evenings. And she is by no means the highest energy dog that I have ever seen. I dont think the tester believed me that she is easy to live with, though. lol But I have pictures of her snoozing to proove that her ON switch isnt always flipped.