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Battling the Stereotype
Jambo the Staffie has won countless awards and accolades, yet is officially classified as a ‘potentially dangerous’ dog. Louise Stapleton-Frappell explains why Breed Specific Legislation completely misses the point
ambo is our second Staffordshire bull terrier. Our first beautiful Staffie, Samson, was the most loveable boy ever. Calm, good natured and playful, Samson died at the age of 11 having lived a life of freedom and without the restrictions of Breed Specific Legislation (BSL). His best friend was our Doberman/German shepherd, Bess, who was a couple of years older than him. We would go for long walks in the countryside and on the beach where they were able to run around, Jambo’s owner has have fun and enjoy their trained him to perform tricks as a freedom. means of channeling After Bess passed his energy away, we added Tessa, our wonderful German shepherd, to our family. She and Sam became best buddies but sadly she only had his company for a couple of years as he was already nine-years-old when Tessa joined us. Tessa was nearly five-years-old when Jambo came into our lives. We had already decided we would like another Staffordshire bull terrier but, unlike the situation elsewhere, there are not many Staffies in Spain. Luckily we heard of a family who had had a litter so we went to meet them and the rest is history! Jambo was born in 2012. His pedigree name is Warrior For Life but I wanted a name that would reflect his personality and not be too ‘hard’. I also wanted to name him something similar to our first Staffie boy, Sam.
Jambo is the Swahili (think ‘warrior’) word for ‘hello’ and Jambo loves to say greet everyone he meets. Jambo proved to be extremely loving, very mischievous, inquisitive, energetic and quite a handful! I started teaching him the basics straight away but as he got a little bit older I wanted to do something more to use up some of his boundless energy. And so began our journey into performing tricks, which we eventually introduced at a Trick Dog Seminar given by Nando Brown. By then, BSL was present in Spain, having come into force in 1999, and I wanted Jambo to be an absolute example of how amazing the bully breeds are. We found ourselves on a mission to smash the stereotype! Jambo received his first Trick Dog title at just sevenmonths-old. By 14-months old he had already won seven Trick Dog titles, including ‘Expert.’ We also worked on general obedience and agility. We train everything using positive reinforcement and love to point out to people that it is a total myth that you need to have a ‘stronger’ hand with this ‘type’ of dog! I am not Jambo’s leader and I do not ‘command’ him to do anything. We work together as a team and he gets rewarded with food, play, cuddles and fun. I firmly believe that we would BARKS from the Guild/April 2014
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