Ferocia Kennels

01/08/2025

First hike of the year, took Vivid, Dragon, Glory and Warlock for a good run and sniff.

01/06/2025

Zeus from the Vivid x Knuckles A litter, his owners report he is a whopping 115 # and keeping fit running. He did 2 5k runs recently - way to go Zeus!

12/28/2024

An excellent read. If you don't fill the cup, it will remain empty. I have said for a long time that every breeder breeds to their personal standards within their breed. We all have preferences of temperament, drives, conformation. We all place difference degrees of importance on each thing which is heavily, if not solely, influenced by our preferences in how we train and handle and live with a dog.

Sometimes a dog and a trainer/handler are not a good match, and even if there is no ill intent on the part of the trainer/handler, they can negatively affect the puppy/dog by not fulfilling it's needs. Filling some cups and leaving others empty will result in imbalances of behavior.

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Capacity limits potential.

Capacity refers to the maximization of inherent physical, mental, and behavioral traits that determine an animal’s potential and ultimately their suitability to different tasks.

Genetics lay the foundation for a dog’s capacity, as well as their suitability to specific roles given that capacity. Traits such as drive profiles, environmental soundness, and temperament are often influenced by hereditary factors.

Capacity is physical. Capacity for endurance, strength, speed, and natural jumping technique.

Capacity is cognitive. Capacity for trainability, memory, and problem-solving.

Capacity is behavioral. Capacity for drive expression, emotional stability, handler sensitivity, and recovery.

Even within the same litter, puppies inherit a unique combination of genes from their parents, leading to variations in capacity within different traits.

While genetics provide the baseline for capacity, environmental influences and training shape the realization of that potential. Training maximizes a dog’s innate capacity.

Even with strong genetic traits, untrained dogs may not reach their potential. Likewise, even the most experienced of hands cannot create excellence where capacity limits it.

Consider every individual trait as a drinking glass. Genetics determines the size of each glass. Training fills the glasses.

No amount of training can make a glass larger. The glass of a dog whose capacity in any given area has been reached in training cannot accommodate more.

Pouring into an already-filled glass will not make it hold more.

Capacity defines the upper limit of potential, while potential represents the possibilities within that limit.

Our jobs as working dog breeders, trainers, handlers, and enthusiasts is to be honest and critical in evaluating the capacity of our dogs.

Good training maximizes potential in good genetics. But good training cannot create what is not there to begin with.

12/27/2024

Another picture of Chesty from the Vivid x Mucho B litter... 🤯 I do not breed for size, especially not head size. Dogs that look impressive are not a focus at all in my program. But I do seem to produce some here and there lol I think Chesty wins the "Biggest Noggin" award! And also, simultaneously, a placement in the "Zero concept of personal space" category 😂 I am wondering if his "dad" can breathe 😆

12/25/2024

Merry Christmas from the Ferocia crew!

12/21/2024

Big boy Chesty from the Vivid x Mucho B2.0 litter! Look at that big ole head 😍

12/08/2024

A pic of handsome big boy Cooper I got from his owners 🎄 Cooper is from the Vivid x Knuckles A litter ❤️

11/30/2024

There is a lot of great information here - especially where he touches on the findings of Dr Hilliard. There is a reason that you don't see the formal type of "temperament testing" done here - I have not found them to be very accurate or helpful in the long run. Most of what I am looking at and observing is personality and character traits with a few specific things in the working picks I have learned to look for specifically in my litters (that may not apply to other lines or breeds).

Something to note in this, his breed is the Malinois. So when he mentions success in working and looking at a litter for how many dogs were accomplished in sport or the desired endeavors - unfortunately that does not apply to the American Bulldog. It is very difficult to find more than one or two dogs from a litter that have been worked or accomplish things that show what I want to see. I also look much further into pedigrees than just the parents and siblings of parents. I look not only at working traits but at the hip/elbow results of the full/half siblings of the parents and grandparents and also THEIR offspring. I look for if the lines involved have been crossed before and what the results of that were. I look at the trends of type/conformation, size, etc.

There is so much that goes into breeding dogs and selecting puppies. The things I look at and look for in my litters may not be what someone else looks for. What I look for in an American Bulldog is not what I would look for in another breed, either.

11/26/2024

Early Thanksgiving treat for the beasts - some amazing local grass fed free range beef heart and tongue 😋

11/18/2024

This lovely girl is Olive! She's from the 2023 Vivid x Mucho B litter and is owned by a veterinarian that says Olive is a wonderful intern 😂 The second and third pics are from back in May when the litter turned a year - I forgot to post them! Her owner says Olive is "More than we could've hoped for, she's truly a great dog." And as a breeder nothing makes me more proud than happy dogs in happy homes ❤️

11/04/2024

Tractor Supply trip with Beefcake today, here's a shopping cart size comparison 🤣

10/28/2024

Happy Birthday Mack!! Can't believe you are 2 years old already ❤️ His owners took him yurt camping at the beach for his birthday and he's enjoying a nap in the first pic 😴 The second pic is from August when he was at an airshow with his owners 🎉

09/21/2024

Small - Large $28 XLarge - XXLarge $32

09/19/2024

Really missing this boy today, he was something else

Please pardon the junk on the property... my landlord moved onto the property in a motorhome after his divorce and brought a lot of JUNK with him. Just a sup...

09/18/2024

Testing, testing.. got a new phone and Instagram won't share to Facebook

09/08/2024

Instagram won’t share the post since I included videos🙄

Dragon is a good sized male at 90 # and a touch under 26”. He has a big hybrid type head with a little less muzzle than I prefer but still plenty to bite with. He has good teeth with a tight undershot bite.

This boy has excellent nerve and is a very serious, stoic kind of dog. He has his moments of bulldog silliness with me and can absolutely be a typical clownish bulldog but only about 15% of the time 😆 He is my quiet and steady shadow, always near.

He is socially neutral, watchful and calmly observant with strange people in public. Dragon is not a suspicious dog, but I would call him “ready.” He is highly territorial and unwelcoming of strangers at home. And though he is safe for formal on leash introductions both at home and in public, accepting pets if I say so, he’s not your friend lol.

Dragon is not dog aggressive and is fairly neutral to strange dogs in public unless he has reason not to be. He has plenty of animal aggression and is an excellent critter and vermin hunter.

This boy is very biddable and absolutely loves to do things with me. He is naturally a very handler focused dog and is not easily distracted by other dogs or busy environments (tasty critters and helpers/decoys are another matter😂). He is hard to correction as is typical for a bulldog, and is extremely resilient to pressure from the handler. Dragon is the type of dog that tries harder and often comes up in drive with physical correction, responding best to personal pressure from me which can be challenging to balance at times. He has high food drive and is very easy to motivate, seeking the faux fight and interaction with equipment with me vs an obsession with the equipment itself.

In bitework he has good prey drive but his primary motivation is the fight and opposition with the helper. He has proven himself not to be equipment focused but is a safe dog to work. (Just don’t kick at him if you don’t want your leg bit 😂)

Dragon is my go everywhere dog, he is the dog that rides loose on road trips and that I take out with me at stops. He is an excellent house dog, being very calm and has zero destructive or problematic tendencies.

Dragons IS available at stud to approved bi***es for puppy back arrangements, my sole interest in him used by others is to continue the line and have offspring from him for myself

09/01/2024

Glory at almost 2.5 years 🥰 She is a good sized female at 78 #, she is tall with plenty of leg under her. Pictured next to Beefcake in the second picture gives a better idea of her height and type.

I’m going to do posts about each dog and their traits over the next couple weeks, I will start with this girl.

Glory is very intelligent, trainable, and biddable. She has some fire in her belly and loves to work. She pushes me to work and train, to do things. Glory has high prey drive and has so far shown to be clear headed and very forward in her work, with nice full grips and good object possession. She has nice quick strikes and puts her entire body into thrashing in true bulldog fashion.

She has nice large teeth and a scissors bite. She is a problem solver without being problematic, she generalizes behaviors very quickly (which is typical of my dogs). She is moderately hard, as expected of a bulldog, and handler sensitive just enough to buffer that hardness without being soft. She is highly resilient to stress from the handler and in general.

Socially, she is not friends with strange dogs (which is normal and expected behavior for bulldogs) but is unproblematic with the other dogs in the household (with proper training and management!) and she absolutely ADORES puppies. When it comes to humans, she is intensely bonded to her person(me) and is happy and welcoming of family she knows. She is not an outwardly social dog with strangers, she is fairly neutral and has no real interest in getting any affection from strangers. If you have food she will pretend for a moment to be your friend until you give her the food 😆

I am beyond excited to continue to work her and I have breeding plans for her next spring ❤️