July 2010 Tip of the Month
Gunclub-labs.com
Copyright 2010
by Julie Knutson
Reprinted with written permission from the author
Last month we talked about dogs possessing a heightened level of awareness. People refer to these as sensitive, but using conventional ‘tags’ to describe an animal means you don’t have to spend much time analyzing or considering the dog you are training. The tag for the type of dog I’m going to talk about this month is the ‘high drive’ dog. When people refer to their dog as a ‘high drive’ dog, what I hear is that the dog is going to have poor obedience, not sit or at least not remain seated, break on marks, not sit on whistles or over run marks routinely. It may have an attention deficit disorder and won’t always be focused or responsive.
All of this happens of course because the dog has such high desire; desire to retrieve, desire to chase things, desire to move more than sit still and desire to allow its thoughts to roam constantly, never lighting on any particular thing for very long. It is true that just as it is with humans, some animals have more difficulty reining in their active minds. Or, just as with humans, some animals are so intensely focused on one single thing that all stimuli around them cease to be perceived. Those are real conditions in humans and in dogs, but they are also conditions that can be addressed and managed. When you combine an animal with lots of enthusiasm and interest in its work with mental processing issues, you have your hands full. Training one of these guys takes several things:
1. Awareness on your part of the dogs’ energy level;
2. Awareness that the dog may have a naturally random attention or a strictly single
focused attention;
3. Knowledge that the standards you would hold for a simple, easy to train dog hold
for one not so simple or easy to train. This is critically important.
4. A plan for dealing with the motivation of the dog, to channel it into useful form, for the dog and for you.
#1 isn’t so difficult. When little dogs run so hard they tumble over themselves after
things and then run back just as hard with total consistency, you may have a hard charger. Usually breaking dogs are those allowed too much freedom early on so once they are big, strong dogs we decide they need to be made steady. That’s way too late if you like training to be easy or at least enjoyable. High energy is very cute in little puppies, but it should be identified and managed when the dog needs it, before it becomes a problem. Few of us need help identifying the high enthusiasm dog, or the extremely driven dog.
#2 is the key to formulating a plan to manage the 12 cylinder dog. If this type of dog
stares you in the face in great anticipation of any work or movement to come, if the dog invests 100% of itself in trying to do exactly what you are asking, this won’t be a hard thing. When a dog focuses on you, teaching anything is easier. You can also easily teach a young dog with this characteristic to remain sensitive to the fact you may interject in the middle of an activity and if that happens, the dog is to redirect its focus. You have to do that with intense humans and you need to do it with intense dogs. You don’t interfere with good work, but you do teach them you can change the rules when necessary and rule changes are part of the game.
For example, when force fetching one of these dogs, they get the idea of reaching for something usually fairly quickly if you communicate clearly what you are asking. Then the problem becomes they are going to reach for it any time they see it, if you have the bumper in front of them or anytime they think you may utter the word fetch. Now you have a ‘don’t fetch it until I say’ problem. Enter concept #3. That will follow in the next paragraph, we still need to talk about the dog with the attention span of a humming bird, the dog that looks at you, sees the robin fly by, hears the dog next door and just HAS to smell the grass at your feet – all in the instant you are trying to teach something from the dogs seated position. Again, enter concept #3.
#3 is the tough part for many of us; holding the same standards for one of these guys as we do for the easy to train dog. Here’s the answer to the ‘high drive’ dog, with intense concentration or wandering concentration: Hold the same standards in training as you would with a dog that is a piece of cake to train.
Dogs more comfortable allowing their focus to move constantly with no effort on their part to hold it a single thing can learn to remain focused and, over time, can acquire focus as a habit. I’ve had dogs brought to me for obedience issues because the dog would sit and get up and move independently and sniff and basically tune out the owner. I was told how smart the dog was but, it had such a good nose that it had to constantly sniff and it was terribly interested if other dogs were around. My response was annoyingly, that the dog didn’t sit when told. Now that’s not a very glamorous answer, but if you could watch a video of the dog doing obedience with no sound, you would clearly see a dog that didn’t sit. Instead of excusing the lack of response, just require the response, even in the presence of good smells, appealing sights and things that might be more fun to do than obedience. Period. A dog with extremely high drive and desire, with lots of interest in all kinds of things – can sit when told and remain seated until released or redirected. If you approach the crazy wild dog in this manner, it will never know that what it is being taught can be met with resistance or lack of attention. It will only know that sit means sit and whatever else you say means what you intend that it mean.
All of this happens of course because the dog has such high desire; desire to retrieve, desire to chase things, desire to move more than sit still and desire to allow its thoughts to roam constantly, never lighting on any particular thing for very long. It is true that just as it is with humans, some animals have more difficulty reining in their active minds. Or, just as with humans, some animals are so intensely focused on one single thing that all stimuli around them cease to be perceived. Those are real conditions in humans and in dogs, but they are also conditions that can be addressed and managed. When you combine an animal with lots of enthusiasm and interest in its work with mental processing issues, you have your hands full. Training one of these guys takes several things:
1. Awareness on your part of the dogs’ energy level;
2. Awareness that the dog may have a naturally random attention or a strictly single
focused attention;
3. Knowledge that the standards you would hold for a simple, easy to train dog hold
for one not so simple or easy to train. This is critically important.
4. A plan for dealing with the motivation of the dog, to channel it into useful form, for the dog and for you.
#1 isn’t so difficult. When little dogs run so hard they tumble over themselves after
things and then run back just as hard with total consistency, you may have a hard charger. Usually breaking dogs are those allowed too much freedom early on so once they are big, strong dogs we decide they need to be made steady. That’s way too late if you like training to be easy or at least enjoyable. High energy is very cute in little puppies, but it should be identified and managed when the dog needs it, before it becomes a problem. Few of us need help identifying the high enthusiasm dog, or the extremely driven dog.
#2 is the key to formulating a plan to manage the 12 cylinder dog. If this type of dog
stares you in the face in great anticipation of any work or movement to come, if the dog invests 100% of itself in trying to do exactly what you are asking, this won’t be a hard thing. When a dog focuses on you, teaching anything is easier. You can also easily teach a young dog with this characteristic to remain sensitive to the fact you may interject in the middle of an activity and if that happens, the dog is to redirect its focus. You have to do that with intense humans and you need to do it with intense dogs. You don’t interfere with good work, but you do teach them you can change the rules when necessary and rule changes are part of the game.
For example, when force fetching one of these dogs, they get the idea of reaching for something usually fairly quickly if you communicate clearly what you are asking. Then the problem becomes they are going to reach for it any time they see it, if you have the bumper in front of them or anytime they think you may utter the word fetch. Now you have a ‘don’t fetch it until I say’ problem. Enter concept #3. That will follow in the next paragraph, we still need to talk about the dog with the attention span of a humming bird, the dog that looks at you, sees the robin fly by, hears the dog next door and just HAS to smell the grass at your feet – all in the instant you are trying to teach something from the dogs seated position. Again, enter concept #3.
#3 is the tough part for many of us; holding the same standards for one of these guys as we do for the easy to train dog. Here’s the answer to the ‘high drive’ dog, with intense concentration or wandering concentration: Hold the same standards in training as you would with a dog that is a piece of cake to train.
Dogs more comfortable allowing their focus to move constantly with no effort on their part to hold it a single thing can learn to remain focused and, over time, can acquire focus as a habit. I’ve had dogs brought to me for obedience issues because the dog would sit and get up and move independently and sniff and basically tune out the owner. I was told how smart the dog was but, it had such a good nose that it had to constantly sniff and it was terribly interested if other dogs were around. My response was annoyingly, that the dog didn’t sit when told. Now that’s not a very glamorous answer, but if you could watch a video of the dog doing obedience with no sound, you would clearly see a dog that didn’t sit. Instead of excusing the lack of response, just require the response, even in the presence of good smells, appealing sights and things that might be more fun to do than obedience. Period. A dog with extremely high drive and desire, with lots of interest in all kinds of things – can sit when told and remain seated until released or redirected. If you approach the crazy wild dog in this manner, it will never know that what it is being taught can be met with resistance or lack of attention. It will only know that sit means sit and whatever else you say means what you intend that it mean.
So, the intense dog that has been taught to fetch on command can wait until the command is given instead of just fetching anytime it thinks it should. This means that when told to sit, the dog is to sit and remain that way until told to fetch – high drive or not. Same standards you’d have on an easy dog. For the dog that can only sit on a few whistles and then just has to hunt things up itself, this dog needs to learn that same thing as the other examples – sit means to sit. 4th whistle, 1st whistle or 22nd whistle, sit means sit. The first time someone allows their ‘high drive’ to slip whistles in the yard work or while handling, they have opened the door for not sitting, so quit blaming the dog. Keep the standards the same.
“High drive” dogs are not stubborn, they are just very determined and it is worth some flack to try and do what they really want to do. Call it stubborn if it makes you
comfortable, but a dog that really, really loves to do something, just really loves to do that something. Instead of being critical of that or calling it something derogatory, use it to your advantage. Up your standards even higher on obedience and responsiveness and watch your dog work more for you. They’ll do what you ask even harder just so they can do what they want to do. “High drive” dogs can be very steady on marks, because they want to go so much. If they learn that sit means sit and that it is the unbending rule and that wriggling or even moving a toe is not sitting still, they will sit still out of habit, so they can go run marks. Enforce sit as if it was life and death, because for field dogs, it can be. If you trained your dog as if the responsiveness had to be there or the dog would not survive, you’d get the responses you are shooting for. If instead you keep making excuses because your dog is so enthusiastic, then your dog will never perform they way you’d really like.
The dog with tons of go is not a hard dog to train. You do have to make some changes however. Every response you teach, every command you give must have the same intensity built into response as the one you give to send the dog on a long mark or on a big hunt. Place as much importance on ‘sit’ and ‘here’ as you do on enjoying watching your dog run at Mach II on a retrieve. More even because you’ve got the go, you need to teach the intensity on stop, wait or turn around and see what I have to say now. Teach the dog with wandering attention that regardless of the many shiny things around, it can hear commands and respond, because you asked and nothing more is necessary. High drive is nice and can be very useful. If allowed unmanaged expansion it is obnoxious and not useful at all. It is almost never the dog; it is the person who doesn’t view management as a job or an option. Teach, then enforce and enforce like life depends on it.
Finally, a dog with a high level of motivation can be most easily managed by working
with and challenging two aspects, ideally on a daily basis. The aspect which drains the excess energy most thoroughly is intellect. Work that challenges the dog’s ability to think, understand and process requires more resources than mere exercise. Non-routine obedience, such that the dog doesn’t already know what’s coming, drills that are not patterns or review work, marks and blinds that require thinking to accomplish are all ways that challenge a dog’s mind. There is a distinct difference in the energy drain required from real thinking and just spending physical energy requiring no thought. A physics final takes more out of a college student than a good run around the track and challenging drills drain the motivated dog more than just running. Couple intellectual challenge with structured physical demand and you can turn the most highly charged dog into an animal that would really like to rest quietly. For the average intellect, the mental challenge will be easier to create than that for the high IQ dog, so as a trainer, you’ll have to call upon your own intellect to determine what is truly a mental challenge for your dog.
Physical challenge carried out without the balancing mental drain for the high rollers can often times make the problem worse. Chaotic thinking that can go along with a big run on the ATV enhances just that: chaotic thinking. So the dog is even more difficult to get to sit, remain focused or to give true thought to what it is doing. Carry out both with frequency and forethought and you will find your ‘high drive’ dog is just a really stylish dog that loves what it does.
“High drive” dogs are not stubborn, they are just very determined and it is worth some flack to try and do what they really want to do. Call it stubborn if it makes you
comfortable, but a dog that really, really loves to do something, just really loves to do that something. Instead of being critical of that or calling it something derogatory, use it to your advantage. Up your standards even higher on obedience and responsiveness and watch your dog work more for you. They’ll do what you ask even harder just so they can do what they want to do. “High drive” dogs can be very steady on marks, because they want to go so much. If they learn that sit means sit and that it is the unbending rule and that wriggling or even moving a toe is not sitting still, they will sit still out of habit, so they can go run marks. Enforce sit as if it was life and death, because for field dogs, it can be. If you trained your dog as if the responsiveness had to be there or the dog would not survive, you’d get the responses you are shooting for. If instead you keep making excuses because your dog is so enthusiastic, then your dog will never perform they way you’d really like.
The dog with tons of go is not a hard dog to train. You do have to make some changes however. Every response you teach, every command you give must have the same intensity built into response as the one you give to send the dog on a long mark or on a big hunt. Place as much importance on ‘sit’ and ‘here’ as you do on enjoying watching your dog run at Mach II on a retrieve. More even because you’ve got the go, you need to teach the intensity on stop, wait or turn around and see what I have to say now. Teach the dog with wandering attention that regardless of the many shiny things around, it can hear commands and respond, because you asked and nothing more is necessary. High drive is nice and can be very useful. If allowed unmanaged expansion it is obnoxious and not useful at all. It is almost never the dog; it is the person who doesn’t view management as a job or an option. Teach, then enforce and enforce like life depends on it.
Finally, a dog with a high level of motivation can be most easily managed by working
with and challenging two aspects, ideally on a daily basis. The aspect which drains the excess energy most thoroughly is intellect. Work that challenges the dog’s ability to think, understand and process requires more resources than mere exercise. Non-routine obedience, such that the dog doesn’t already know what’s coming, drills that are not patterns or review work, marks and blinds that require thinking to accomplish are all ways that challenge a dog’s mind. There is a distinct difference in the energy drain required from real thinking and just spending physical energy requiring no thought. A physics final takes more out of a college student than a good run around the track and challenging drills drain the motivated dog more than just running. Couple intellectual challenge with structured physical demand and you can turn the most highly charged dog into an animal that would really like to rest quietly. For the average intellect, the mental challenge will be easier to create than that for the high IQ dog, so as a trainer, you’ll have to call upon your own intellect to determine what is truly a mental challenge for your dog.
Physical challenge carried out without the balancing mental drain for the high rollers can often times make the problem worse. Chaotic thinking that can go along with a big run on the ATV enhances just that: chaotic thinking. So the dog is even more difficult to get to sit, remain focused or to give true thought to what it is doing. Carry out both with frequency and forethought and you will find your ‘high drive’ dog is just a really stylish dog that loves what it does.
