How do I love thee???
Let me count the ways... Raising a pup to work as a team-whether for real work or sport, involves shaping many layers of interactive behaviors that are both innate and taught. Temperament is there in every pup, they are born with who they will be, on a basic level. While we can shape behavior, we can not change temperament. Basic drives and instincts in a dog, dictate who they will be. The pup in front of us, is complicated. Finding what makes them tick, is the key. Some pups don't offer us the keys as easily, we have to count ways to picking the lock! So as trainers, how do we find and build reinforcers, for a pup? How do we become important? I think that whether you have one dog, or ten-they all teach us to evaluate and re-evaluate in regards to how we do things, and our relationship with a dog. Our relationship with one pup, may be very different than with another-we remain the constant in the relationship. We might change a bit, but after raising a few dogs, we ...