I like my dogs obsessive and neurotic. Why? Because that’s how working retrievers are supposed to be.
My first golden retriever started retrieving when we got her as a small red golden puppy, and she didn’t stop until the brain tumor began to really take its deadly toll. She had to retrieve at least one hundred times a day. She was smart and active, and, well, weird.
You don’t think that the founding breeders of retrievers didn’t want an obsessive drivey dog, do you? Why would they want that?
Well, if you want a dog to carry a wounded goose out of an ice-choked river, he better be pretty eager to do the job. Dogs that lack the obsessive drive simply don’t have what it takes to do the work.
Of course, you want the drive and biddability, but biddability is actually pretty easy to breed into an obsessive dog. If you use the obsessive motor pattern as the reward for good behavior, you can have a dog that’s pretty easy to manage.
For me, a drivey, obsessive dog is far easier to train for even normal purposes, simply because you always have that obsession to hold over their heads as a reward.
I have a much harder time working the white Newfoundlandy goldens that don’t like to move. I am naturally a calm person, and I have a very hard time getting a calm dog motivated. I don’t have a high-pitched voice either, so when I have a calm dog, my presence tends to make them more calm.
Most working dog people want obsessive dogs, except for those who train livestock guardian dogs. I’m not experienced with these dogs, so don’t ask me to train your Great Pyrenees. If you want a Great Pyrenees to do its work, you take it from a newly weaned pup and keep it with sheep. It imprints on the sheep, and when it matures, it will guard them. There’s not much training there. But if you had a drivey dog trying to guard your sheep, you’d have a lot of harassed, scared, and maybe even dead sheep on your hands. That’s why Great Pyrenees are bred for a very high threshold before they exhibit predatory motor patterns (retrieving and herding are predatory motor patterns). They’ve also been bred to bond strongly to whatever animals with which they share the environment. That’s why they guard. In a trial quality retriever or collie, you don’t want a dog that is dog aggressive, because your dog is going to be around a lot of dogs at the trials.
Get me a barmy golden retriever or a border or even a really object obsessed Jack Russell, and I can train it. But get me a low energy dog that is motivated more by food and creature comforts, and I’m totally lost.
Everyone has to admit they have weakness in training dogs, and lazy, calm dogs are my weakness. Maybe it’s because I can get just as obsessive as a really drivey dog. I get them.
A drivey dog has character, and the calm ones have no real personality.
Also, I’ve got an article on dealing with hyperactive dogs, just in case you have one that is driving you crazy.
You would so love my McKenzie.
Or Zip(!!!). That’s why we could never put those two together. Most of the population couldn’t handle that kind of dog…
But it sounds like your favorite dogs were/are obsessive about their work, not just wild…
By those who watched him work, our oldest boy Pete was perceived to be too much dog. He busted through the heaviest cover, worked tirelessly even the day he was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive spindle cell sarcoma. At home, he was calm, loved to hang with people. As long as he had a chance to work (or train) every day, he had an off button.
Field trialers love that energy. But I don’t know how welcome they would be at a classic English Shoot…
I’m looking for more of dog like that. One that needs to work to be happy but is okay in the house.
I’m not wanting a dog as extreme as a field trial lab of some lines, which are too wild for anyone to handle, except a good field trialer. The most famous dog of this type is the dog that was in the book Marley and Me i. The author of that book didn’t have a clue about that breed or that type. No wonder he thought he was a terrible dog.
These dogs should only be sold to someone who wants to work the dogs or do dog sports of some type. If they don’t want to do that, they shouldn’t get them. I mean a drivey retriever has several purposes, even in cancer detection. The second skin cancer detection dog was a field-type golden. If people don’t want to work a dog and stimulate its mind and body, I don’t think they should be getting any breed of retriever, because there are breeders who are trying to breed in extreme calmness and mellowness in the dogs. I think that this messes up with the brain chemistry of the dogs a bit and could lead to aggression.
Hmmm. Well I don’t get it then. My dogs are always game for a good run, flyball or retrieving from a big lake. But they settle down quickly and remain mellow when they come indoors. The second I open the door they know to turn on the game face and get out there. I can get each of them to run out by name and command and retrieve a toy placed out there the night before. Just pointing to it they will search, find and retrieve at full throttle all day everyday. I don’t ask for more but they’d certainly give it. I wouldn’t call them neurotic or obsessive. Just COOL and determined. ;-)
You know that dogs are better at following a human pointing than chimpanzees are. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/innovators/hare.html
I’m talking about controlled drive.
I’m only calling them neurotic because that’s the way they appear to the layperson.
I’m not talking about a crazy field-bred Lab that can’t sit still for a second, one that only field trialers can own.
I’m talking about dog that is okay to have in the house but still need a good deal of physical and mental exercise to stay that way.
I’ve had a lazy, lazy golden retriever, and that dog was nothing like what she should’ve been.
Now, in Labs, you can get a dog that’s way too crazed and drivey to be an acceptable house dog. That’s the result of breeding for the fastest retrievers for field trials.
I’m in complete agreement regarding your take on Marley & Me. I was disgusted with the poor dog’s owners.
That dog could have been an excellent dog, but when you keep a breed or type without understanding that they require lots of physical and mental exercise, you wind up with a dog that is very confused.
He’s since purchased another Lab, which took to killing his chickens (Imagine that: a bird dog that hunts birds! Novel concept!) He even called in Cesar Millan, which tells you how much he knows about training dogs, to solve the problem.
I heard he got one of the puppies that played Marley as a puppy in the film, and this puppy has hip dysplasia, which is really bad because it’s evident before six months. This dog will be in lots of pain as it matures.
[…] is an article of mine. As you know, I like high energy dogs, so I hate the term […]
From my experience as a trainer, I totally agree with you. It’s much better to ratchet back a high drive dog into being controlled and deliberate, but it’s almost IMPOSSIBLE to get a lazy, stupid, or disdainful dog to work. Disdainful dogs are the worst, they are dogs that are high drive with highly inconsistent owners, and they go from eager, bright eyed dogs to showing obvious resentment to depression very quickly.
They can recover but only if they are rehomed, and quickly. These are dogs that learn to bite.
You can’t fix lazy or stupid, but in some cases lazy and stupid are actually preferable for some homes.
Just not if you actually want your dog to be anything more than furniture.