What makes a good dog.

From here on out, I'm going to try to do some training articles from time to time.

I have sure learned a lot in the past 2-3 years while being with Kenny and I have a LONG ways to go.  But I hope to add some things that I have learned on this blog.

According to Kenny, four things make a good field trial dog:

1) Trainability
2) Marking
3) Desire
4) Guts

Trainability is a all-encompassing label.  A trainable dog is one that is intelligent, a team player, handles pressure well and learns.  Trainable dogs may not always know what it is that we're trying to teach, but they WANT to learn and generally do not make the same mistakes over and over.
Dogs that are low on the trainability scale can include:
-dogs that are hard to force fetch
-dogs that are very difficult in the water and don't imrpove
-dogs that have trouble with multiples
-dogs with a poor attitude

Marking is somewhat genetic and somewhat taught.  Knowing WHERE to go is genetic, and knowing where NOT to go is taught.  Some dogs never figure out where NOT to go (they keep going back to the flyer regardless of the number of lessons against this) and these dogs would be also low on the trainability scale, as well as marking.  Great markers never seem to have to be taught this lesson.
Knowing where not to go is just as important as knowing where the bird is in the big All-Age tests judges put up.
I have seen puppies at 6 months of age not knowing how to mark a single at 25 yards, and never improve.  This could be due to poor eyesight, lack of focus, lack of desire, too MUCH desire or just missing the genetic quality that makes a good marker.  I have seen fantastic markers out of no-name parents, and very poor markers out of very accomplished, titled parents.  Generally, the better the family, the better the marker though.

Desire can be a tricky one.  It is inherently genetic, but desire can also be taken out of a dog pretty quickly with poor training.  Especially with young dogs, we try to not make the learning more difficult then the desire of the dog.  Kenny calls it the plateau.  When a dog is ready, they need to be pushed upwards and onwards.  This will cause stress for the dog (and owner!!).  It will take time for the dog to reach this new level of expectation, and no more degree of difficulty should be added at this time.  Once a dog "plateaus" at this level and begins to have a large amount of success over time, then we can do another push up.  This type of training keeps the desire level high and the dog progressing.  The desire needs to be there in the first place though.

Guts is an intangible quality.  We believe guts are taught.  A dogs LEARNS that it can swim 250 yards in a cross wind and be brave in doing it.  But, as with the other criteria, some dogs never get those guts no matter how well we try to teach it.

As you can see, all these criteria blend into one another.  Guts is desire, and desire is guts.  But a dog can have desire with no guts and vice versa.  It really is more an art then a science.

Be sure to teach slowly and thoroughly.  Don't push the dog more then it's ready for and don't ever "test" for guts.  Evaluate your dog thoughtfully and work on the weaknesses.  There is no such thing as the perfect dog.