About Philo
Philo was born May 17th, 1996 at Camping Kennels in Burleson, Texas. We received Philo exactly 8 weeks later. He weighed 23 lbs. Philo is currently 13 years, 11 months and 27 days old. He now stands approximately 29.5 inches at the shoulder and weighs 165 lbs. Philo’s hips are rated OFA Good.
Watch him grow… and grow, and grow! See Philo’s weight statistics as he goes from 23 to 165 pounds!
Philo’s dam is Pitanga do Camping. His sire is Amon de Sion. Check out Philo’s complete pedigree.
Find out what kind of temperament Philo has. How does he interact with our family and others?
Philo has the true Fila temperament.* He is a natural guard dog. Even as a young puppy, Philo would always investigate strange noises. He was very alert and would always have to “check out” anything new or out of the ordinary. Even at 10-weeks old, he would bark at and attack our Dustbuster.
As he grew, he also grew more protective of us. Philo started showing the Fila temperament at only a few months of age. We found it necessary to start obedience training him when he was 5-months old to help get his temperament under control.
Philo is very reserved with strangers. Even when walking him, if he sees someone approaching, his head gets all wrinkled up and his ears prick up in an alert position. I usually walk around people, so they don’t have to get close to him. Even after we pass someone, he will still turn his head around and try to watch them. He doesn’t like to have people behind him unless he can see what is going on. When new people are introduced into his life (friends, family, etc.), it takes him a long time to accept them. With other people in our house (repairmen, etc.), he is usually fine once we tell him it is o.k., unless they try to approach him in his area, or try to pet him.
Although Philo definitely shows the “ojeriza” towards strangers, he is a great family dog. He is very sweet and lovable with everyone in our family. Philo is a very emotional dog. You would not believe the greeting he gives us when we come in the house (whether we’ve been gone 3 hours or 3 minutes)! He always wants to be where his “people” are. Though he weighs over 150 lbs., he still thinks he is lap dog! He also loves to play (more now than when he was a young puppy). Philo is so active that we find he is much easier to live with if he gets his daily walk. If he doesn’t get enough exercise in a day, he can get grumpy.
All in all, I have to say that Philo is everything we could have hoped for in a dog, and more. The Fila Brasileiro is such an interesting breed.
How do you control a 150+ pound dog? Good question! See what kind of training Philo has received.
When Philo was a few months old, we started having difficulties with him playing very aggressively. We knew we had to do something to get him under control soon, because our cute little puppy was getting bigger every day.
At 4 months of age, we contacted a dog trainer in our area. We brought Philo in for an evaluation. She gave us some exercises to do with him at home for one month, until we could bring him in for regular classes. She also taught us some ways to control the bad habits he was developing. The few things she taught us that day were priceless! After all, dog training really is just training people to train their dogs. We saw an immediate change in Philo. I think a lot of his early behavior was him acting out of boredom and us not having the knowledge of how to deal with him.
At 5 months of age, Philo started his obedience classes. We took one-on-one rather than group classes, because we thought we would get more out of the classes that way. But now I think that the group classes might have been better because of the socialization Philo would have received. We did see immediate improvement in his behavior at home. Philo really responded to the training. He received his diploma in Basic Obedience in November of 1996.
We are currently interested in pursuing some Advanced Obedience classes. We would also like to try doing some tracking or agility with Philo.
