My getting a Fila was an accident. He does not like my friends. He does not like people too close to him. He does not like you. He does not like anything outside of the bounds of my house. He's pretty good about just giving a warning growl to people who get too close, and his old owner said she brought him to the dog park, but I don't know if I'm willing to trust it just because he's a year old and hasn't quite come into his temperament yet.
They were bred to hunt jaguars, protect their homes and their lands and their family. Judges in shows where the Fila is an accredited breed are advised not to touch them.
This is my first dog. This is NOT a dog for a first-time dog owner, no matter how much experience with other people's dogs one has. I know you aren't planning on getting one and are just curious. But if you know someone who is thinking about it, or that has one, BE CAREFUL. And advise them that maybe, just maybe, this isn't the dog for them. I made a mistake. But I'm doing everything I can to make up for that mistake and avoid the mistakes others have made with this breed. I refuse to give him up, because I assumed responsibility for him and won't back down or pawn him off on someone else.
At home? He may as well be a gigantic, drooling pile of mush that has entirely too much interest in making snugglies with the cats. But if something threatened one of those cats? I'm pretty sure he'd take off that person's face. At his last home, they had a one-year old daughter waddling around in a walker, and he put his whole mouth on her head while she squealed with glee as he covered her in a fine, glistening glaze of slobber. If I'd made a wrong move? I'd have lost a hand, and didn't even know what I was looking at with him at the time.
I have gotten the impression that my dog, lovable at home as he is, is NOT a friendly dog, he is NOT for other people, just the family, and he is more or less a ticking time bomb of hate and rage. I am going to be extremely careful with him.
