By Pauline Odhiambo
May 12, 2013 is a day forever etched in Olaolu Adebayo’s mind. Olaolu was at home getting ready to go for a church service with his wife and son when he felt the cold barrel of a gun on his head.
“It was about 9 a.m. and I was waiting for my wife in our car outside the gate when a gun was pointed at my head, and I was ordered to get out and marched back into our flat,” he tells TRT Afrika.
“My son was just six months old at the time.”
Terrified by the incident, the young couple decided to move to a safer neigbourhood in Nigeria’s Ondo State.
But when a spate of attempted robberies happened in a nearby apartment block, the couple decided to get a guard dog for their family.
‘Scary’ dogs
“We did some research and found out that Rottweilers are very good guard dogs, and that many people find them scary because of their size,” says Helen Adebayo.
Originally bred as working dogs, Rottweilers were often used to herd livestock.
They are presently popular for police work, search and rescue and even as guide dogs for the visually impaired.
An adult female Rottweiler can weigh up to 48 kilos while males can reach a hefty 60 kilos and grow up to 27 inches tall.
Rottweilers, or Rotties as they are often fondly called by their owners, tend to be bulky even as puppies and grow to be fierce but loving protectors – a quality which bolsters their high demand as guard dogs.
The Adebayos chose a chubby puppy they named ‘Spartan’ – a tag inspired by one of Olaolu’s favourite films about a battalion of fearsome warriors defending their territory against invaders.
And true to his name, Spartan grew into a striking hound, nearing the maximum height of his breed within a year of his birth and intimidating potential intruders with his bulk form.
“People no longer wanted to come close to our compound after we got Spartan,” states Olaolu who works full-time as a surgeon at a local hospital. “There were lots of students living in the same area, so even the social miscreants among them didn’t dare come close to us because of our Rottweiler,” Olaolu says.
Neighbours also started asking the couple about Spartan’s pedigree, and how they could own a dog like him. Having both grown up in dog-owning families, Helen and Olaolu freely shared with their neighbours all the information they knew about rearing Rottweilers and other types of dogs, including maintenance costs.
‘Pure-bred’ Rottweiler
“We were spending quite of bit of money on Spartan’s upkeep, so we started looking into getting a female Rottweiler for breeding purposes so that we could sell puppies for extra income” Helen says.
A pure-bred Rottweiler puppy can cost upwards of $450 in Nigeria, a costly sum in a country estimated to have approximately 10 million dogs, many of them strays, according to data by PetLovers Nigeria.
With dog-ownerships in the country being at 33%, dog-breeding has emerged as a lucrative business venture.
When Spartan was first paired to a healthy female Rottweiler, eight rambunctious puppies were born from the trial breeding. But what started out as a way of getting maintenance money for Spartan gradually blossomed into a thriving breeding company called Onyx and Jewel Rottweiler Breeders – a business that has to date churned out some 150 Rottweilers.
A pedigree Rottweiler is one borne of parents of the same breed – a "pure-bred", in layman’s terms. Onyx and Jewel Breeders often receives dogs for breeding purposes from other reputable breeders in the country.
“It’s important to ensure that the dogs paired for breeding are of pedigree, healthy and up-to-date on their vaccines. They must be well-fed and kept in warm and clean kennels to avoid any sickness or infection,” Helen explains.
“Once the female is pregnant, we continue giving her a nutritious high-protein diet mostly comprised of milk, eggs and freshly ground chicken, and supplement that with multivitamins throughout the nine weeks of pregnancy.”
Bottle-feeding and vaccines
A healthy female can have a litter of between six to12 puppies. The puppies are cleaned immediately after birth and kept in warm kennels with their mothers to breastfeed.
“We sometimes have to bottle-feed the puppies especially when they are too many to be adequately breastfed,” Olaolu says. “Once they are few weeks, we give them DHLPP vaccine which is a type of inoculation that protects them from various diseases.”
Also referred to as Canine Distemper, DHLPP protects dogs from distemper, parvovirus, parainfluenza and two types of canine adenovirus (hepatitis).
“At around six weeks old, we separate them from their mothers so that they are able to start experiencing life on their own are able to leave the kennels for their new families by eight weeks,” Olaolu explains, adding that playtime in the sunlight is important for the puppies at this time to help strengthen their bones.
Onyx breeders help new owners keep up with other routine vaccines for canines including vaccination for rabies.
Therapy dogs
Rottweilers’ have an average life span of 10 years and attain full maturity by three years.
“We are active member of the Rottweiler Breeders Society in Nigeria and our company is also part of the Canine Owners and Breeders Association; so all our dogs are fully registered on the pedigree database,” Olaolu states.
The majority of Onyx clients get Rottweilers for security reasons but many others value them simply for their companionship and therapeautic qualities, something Olaolu can attest to.
“My family now owns 13 Rottweilers including our now old boy Spartan. They have been great companions to us and our four children,” he states. “When I get home from work, the dogs will be jumping around me excitedly and I immediately feel all my work stress melting away.”
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