hi all.
we have a 12 week old staffie called sky,a beautiful black pup whom the whole family adore.
  can anyone give me some information on a staffies skull?
i have heard that after a period of time the skull 'splits'  or 'cracks'  that give the dog distinctive staffie look,im interested to know when in the puppys life this happens,does it cause the pup any discomfort and how long the process takes from start to finish? and maybe any other relevent information on the subject would be great.
your help will be very welcome

my sbt is 4 yrs old and i have reasearched the breed before i got my girl and iam still very into the learning more about sbts i have never heard of the skull cracking the muscles around the skull develop and cause the familiar shape we see in the bull breeds the defined shape is certainly not caused by the skull cracking.

False, false and false :-)
No joe, the staffords skull does not crack or split.
I guess the 'look' you speak of and the fallacy that the skull cracks could come from the fact that when a stafford is maturing his / her muscles mature and form with him / her making an 'm' shape at the top of the head.

Maturity happens at very different times depending on each dog.  My bitch did not mature (i.e. reach her full height/weight etc) until she was almost 3 years old.
My boy is just over 2 years old and still isn't quite there yet.
Have you contacted your local breed club?  They can offer a lot of useful information.
To find your local club, look here http://www.staffords.co.uk/ and then click on breed clubs to find your nearest.
There are many many useful stafford books available too.
hth

Tracey

> the skull 'splits'  or 'cracks'  that give the dog distinctive

Have you been listening to the chavs...
Follow the advise given it will dispell the myths.

"have you been listening to the chavs"
  no not really,im only querying what ive heard thats all.
i stand corrected.

i hadnt hear that particular fallacy before.

i have heard the other fallacy about staffies having lock jaws

In lots of breeds people talk about the head 'breaking' - just means that it loses the puppy look and gets the outline of the mature adult - perhaps that's where this particular piece of mis-information came from?

I think the term's similar to a boy's voice 'breaking' - nothing actually breaks, but it assumes its adult shape.

The particular shape of a staffie's head has a lot to do with the massive amount of muscle the head and jaws have, not a different shape to the skull itself.

thanks all those who have thrown some light on the subject,as i said before im only querying what i had been told(by more than one person),unfortunatly these 'mythes' etc do do the rounds so to speak.

Hi Joe I think either the people you have spoken to or by mistake you yourself may have taken an often used term just a little too literally. "Once his head breaks" is quite often used to describe the dogs head maturing, however as you have now discovered it doesn't actually involve any splitting, cracking or breaking in reality. :-D
Welcome to the forum

Hi Joe,

You would be surprised at the many myths there are surounding dogs, at least you had the right idea and asked here!

One such comment I hate to hear from some dog owners, usually those who have an untrained dog or dog that is playing up because it is sooo bored is:

"It got something in it's ear which has turned it bad"! lol

Have you ever heard anything quite so stupid?

I took in a rescue flatcoat which the owner had not bothered to train and all the family went out to work all day every day, the poor dog was all on his own and no surprises for us on Champdogs, he chewed up the house to amuse himself. I got him from the local dog rescue and found out who had owned him before. So I called the woman and asked "Where did you get him from? I was thinking of getting one myself" She answered telling me where he had come from and that she had had to put him into rescue as she could not do anything with him because he had got something in his ear and it made him be destructive in the house! She also told me was looking for another one to replace this dog as he was obviously not right since he got something in his ear.

Perhaps this is a local expression? I never heard it before I lived in this part of the world but have often heard it since.

>> "It got something in it's ear which has turned it bad"! lol

what, a brain?  some people say the strangest things.  I have never heard that saying either.

>>> "It got something in it's ear which has turned it bad"! lol
> what, a brain?

Very good :-D