PUNCH
Thirty-three-year-old dog breeder, Oloruntoba Are, who recently went viral on social media for training his dogs to understand Yoruba language, tells FATTEH HAMID about his decision to teach dogs in his native language.
What type of dog do you breed?
I started off my career breeding Rottweilers. I chose this breed for its strength and intelligence. As well as the visual effect they portray. They look formidable and deter criminal activity just by looks alone. They were always the dog I pictured in my mind when I imagine a home protection dog and family member.
When did you start breeding dogs? How many years now?
I started breeding in 2018 with our first male Rottweiler, Toshi, as a stud dog. 2023 marks the start of our sixth year of breeding. We officially established our business, Chocorott Limited in January 2022. We acquired Toshi to be a guard dog for our compound at first. With increased security concerns rising in the country, we wanted to share with the community what we came to know as a capable breed to handle the important job of guarding and protection. I consider the Rottweiler the ideal canine for such tasks. Their ability to recognise and respond to suspicious or strange behaviours and people is top-notch. We decided to get Toshi a female mate, Luna, in early 2018 and we started breeding ourselves with Toshi and Luna.
You were seen in a viral video where you communicated with your dogs in Yoruba; that is an unusual thing. How did you come by this?
The thought to train our dogs to hear Yoruba didn’t come to me initially. It began with the search to enhance the already sharp skills learned by our dogs. We train our dogs to work for us in various ways that include basic to advanced obedience, agility, herding, grounds security, and personal bodily protection, and wanted to further enhance their abilities and value. I thought it would be very useful to be able to communicate with our dogs in another language beyond English for security reasons.
Another motivation was my desire to gift my parents, who only speak Yoruba, a protection dog when the construction of their home is complete. So, I decided to teach our dogs Yoruba so my parents can effectively communicate with them. I believe dogs are capable of much more than we imagine and exposing them to different languages is just the beginning.
When did you start teaching your dogs how to understand Yoruba?
We taught Toshi a little bit of Yoruba in 2020 and we started Yoruba training with Cochise on January 28, 2023. One day, a friend and I reasoned together and thought that Toshi was an obedient, brilliant dog and what could we do to showcase his demeanour and abilities. Rottweilers have a bad name among many people and we wanted to change their perception of the breed. So, we decided to try teaching Toshi some Yoruba for fun and bring positive thoughts about the breed to those that watched the video. We were accused by some of using secret hand gestures or even juju to communicate with Toshi while others appreciated our efforts. This was the beginnings of us using Yoruba language in our training. It is not juju, its dedication, and we hope to inspire others to do such things with their own dogs as well. Our dogs, being bilingual, makes it easier for us to maintain control of them in public places where both languages are spoken.
