Hartl's Old Style Stafford's - (Sammy)

I got my first stafford in 2016, after a long and intense interest in the breed and its history. After seeing some pictures of different types of stafford and comparing lots of features of dogs of the past and modern show dogs I decided my dog had to be from a breeder who was aiming for a dog with the old time qualities. So after some research I got in touch with Gary and we had an agreement I would get my pup from a planned litter. I wanted to have the possibility to watch the pup grow and follow his maturing the best way possible so I wanted a pup in late autumn /beginning of winter so I could take it with me in the fields. Unfortunately the litter didn't work out and I was looking for another pup. I found an Italian breeder, by the name of Wild Staffy who currently had a nice black and tan male pup available and decided to take him.
He was very small as I took him home but had good spirit and was a really playfull confident little pup, sometimes a real pain in the ass...
I remember as he was 2,5 months old he found a dead mouse and swallowed it as a whole, it was nearly half of his size. He was spending the whole day with me in the field as I work in agriculture producing apples on our own farm. He always loved to come out with me. To my surprise he grew a normal size, he also was becoming a well proportioned little dog. As a young dog he developed a great instinct for hunting, at 8 months, as I was on a walk with him and our little guard dog, he grabbed a roedeer by the throat who was stuck in a fence, i managed to get him of the poor animal and Tied him to a nearby tree.
​Unfortunately, as I was freeing the beast from the fence, the knot I made in a hurry gave up and as soon as the deer was free Sammy catched it a few meters later and pinned it to the ground by the nose, again I was somehow able to get him of it and finally the poor animal fled.
This wasn't his last encounter with wild game as he always was out with me but from there on all he was able to was chasing the deer or hares for a few meters as they were just to fast for a Stafford, that was until I was on a walk with him in a fenced vineyard where he saw a grown roedeer and decided to give it a try. I was expecting the normal procedure and expected him to be back in a few minutes with nothing happened, it came differently, suddenly I heard scary screaming, instantly i knew I had to go there, i was on my toes and after about 30 seconds I was there and saw Sammy pinning the roedeer to the fence, i managed to choke it off it but the deer was already heavily injured and had to be unfortunately PTS.
If you saw the dog you could not imagine him catching anything as he is really lazy and easy going inside the house, but these dogs can switch gears instantly as I had to witness. He is a really good dog and I'm really pleased how he turned out to be. He's really good with people and is a real all purpose dog. He also gets along really well with Nikki, a lovely female i later on got from Riskys kennel. I'm really happy to say that I now have a great friendship with Gary as we share common ideas on the future of the breed and on the qualities of the breed.
Regards LeonHard Klotz.
Hartl's Old Style Staffords (Italy)

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Sammy @ 11 weeks

Sammy @ 9 Months
​Protecting the Vine Yards..

Sammy @ 3years
Looking focused
Displaying Rock hard conditioning.
Credits to Leonhard.

Sammy with the faithful watchdog Idefix .

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