Eileen's Question

[Root Beer]

Kristine, Jetta is probably not more than 16 inches. I think she's more like 15. My puppy Sam was taller than her before he was sixteen weeks old. She's so nicely built you really can't tell she's a midget until you get your hands on her.

 

My only nibble was a terrier person - she came and was the first one who suggested "Border Jack" to me - but she wasn't interested because her personality is too "Border" and not enough terrier.

 

But talk about pressure - she can seriously take some. She does stuff like leap up on the desk while I'm working and I drop her (not so nicely as she knows better by now) and she'll be back again in five minutes.

 

You can see why people do this cross on purpose. Ironic that Jetta, most likely randomly and accidentally bred and dropped in a shelter on Christmas eve, got the exact balance of desire to please with super resilience and GO NOW (not to mention physical type and ability, that sport people want, whether it is purebred or mixed dogs. With the bonus that she's just about the perfect housedog.

 

I think this was only a partial hijack?

 

I'll admit that she attracts me most because she reminds me of Sammie, but I watched her videos and I really like her attitude!!

 

You know, though, I've never seen a BorderJack run a clean Agility course. The only ones I've ever seen run - and I don't see many of them - have been absolutely wild out there. I'm wondering if they tend to take pressure too well - like they are pretty darn oblivious to it a lot of the time!! (On topic statement!!)

 

Now, I'm NOT saying that all BorderJacks are wild and can't make good Agility dogs. I don't see nearly enough to know what potential they have. They do seem to be more popular among the Flyball folks. Agility people around here seem to go in more for Border Collies and Shelties if they are deliberately picking a breed "for Agility".

 

What I am saying is that she seems exactly like the kind of training challenge I would adore! In so many ways.

 

I doubt I would ever look to adopt a Border Collie/Jack Russel cross on purpose, but if I were looking for a new dog and came across her, I doubt I would be able to resist. I do prefer them when they are more Border Collie-ish and less terrier-ish, as she is.

 

And, just to be clear, if I ever took the notion to get a Border Collie/Jack Russel cross, I would absolutely adopt the dog from rescue. I'm actually far more likely to get another Border Collie/Lab mix at some point, though. But again - from a rescue or shelter.

 

I hope you find someone to snap her up soon!

[Pippin's person]

They do seem to be more popular among the Flyball folks. Agility people around here seem to go in more for Border Collies and Shelties if they are deliberately picking a breed "for Agility".

 

Sorry for the continued hijack, but I'm curious whether you think that difference comes from the fact that many (most?) Agility trials available are AKC sanctioned and they don't really accept mixed breeds whereas in flyball, the actual breed of the dog only matters for the mixed-breed teams? I'm not a supporter of specifically breeding for either, but I did generally find flyball folks to be somewhat more focused on the dog's skills/potential than its specific "breed" than I find in Agility.

 

A little back on topic, I thought Mary's post about the fact that most c/t trained dogs aren't bred really important and not often pointed out. From what I've seen among agility folks who breed their dogs--they seem to breed for speed, biddability, agility, keeness and size. Does that square with what others of you see?

[Root Beer]

Sorry for the continued hijack, but I'm curious whether you think that difference comes from the fact that many (most?) Agility trials available are AKC sanctioned and they don't really accept mixed breeds whereas in flyball, the actual breed of the dog only matters for the mixed-breed teams? I'm not a supporter of specifically breeding for either, but I did generally find flyball folks to be somewhat more focused on the dog's skills/potential than its specific "breed" than I find in Agility.

 

Honestly, I don't know.

 

I do know that I see way fewer mixes than purebreds across the board in Agility. Obviously, this is in the venues that allow mixes. This has been statistically documented, too, and a lot of people who are into Agility wonder why more people with mixes don't run Agility. (Note - they wonder why more people with mixes don't run Agility, not why more Agility people don't get mixes. That's an interesting fact in itself)

 

I'm not sure if it has to do with the fact that a lot of people do AKC Agility - even those who participate in other venues. Of course some do and some don't for various and sundry reasons.

 

I think it may also have something to do with predictability of traits in the dog. If I get a Border Collie to do Agility with, chances are good that my dog is going to run like a Border Collie. Yes, you can get a dog with a temperament problem or some quirk, but as long as all is "sound" with the dog, if I do my training well, my dog is going to run like a Border Collie.

 

A mix is a major unknown. Right now I run a Border Collie/Lab mix and I love her. If she were a breed, I would get another in a heartbeat, but the fact is that any Border Collie/Lab mix I get in the future is likely to be very different. I mean in traits like speed, running style, learning style, etc. Obviously, "personality" varies among individuals within breeds.

 

Does that make sense? If I were inclined to get a dog for Agility (instead of getting a dog and then choosing the sport based on the dog's preferences and talents, which is more my style), I doubt I would get a mix of any kind. It's not a bias against mixes because I like them a lot. It's just that I can't really know what I'm going to get in a mix like I can in a purebred.

 

I don't compete in AKC, so that's from someone who technically doesn't "need" a purebred to do the sports that I enjoy.

 

I think that in Flyball, certain mixes have been proven to be excellent Flyball dogs - like Border Collie/Jack Russel. There are others, I'm pretty sure. Don't they mix Papillions (spelling?) with something for Fllyball? But I don't think the same has happened in Agility. I have my guesses as to why, but I think I'd offend some people if I explained, so I won't!!

 

A little back on topic, I thought Mary's post about the fact that most c/t trained dogs aren't bred really important and not often pointed out. From what I've seen among agility folks who breed their dogs--they seem to breed for speed, biddability, agility, keeness and size. Does that square with what others of you see?

 

I would agree. Not that I know a lot of breeders personally, but I do know some people who buy dogs from sport breeders and none of them are looking for a c/t trainability in a dog. These are Agility folks, but not Border Collie people. They want dogs who are fast, "drivey", and have good temperaments. They aren't looking for dogs who are going to respond to any particular training method.

[Eileen Stein]

If my understanding of the definition of pressure is correct, and sport trainers of this particular method are not using any pressure in their training methods, how can the lack of pressure in training not be detrimental to the Border Collie when pressure is instinctively such a massive chunk of everything that makes a dog a Border Collie?

Border Collies are incredibly capable of learning in more than one way and every one that I've ever worked with has responded remarkably well to reinforcement based training. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but no Border Collie that I've ever worked with has proved a dunce at reinforcement based learning. In fact, they are among the best at it from what I've seen.

 

I totally agree with this, but it really doesn't have anything to do with my question. (Maybe it wasn't meant to?) If what you are training for can be trained through reinforcement based training, you're going to be fine forever in this respect with both working-bred dogs and agility-bred dogs, because, as you say, they all respond well to reinforcement based training. (BTW, I regret using the term "c/t style" training because I see it sent some people off to talking about/defending clickers, whereas I wasn't talking about clickers in particular but rather all-positive mark/reward training, or -- as you are saying -- reinforcement based training.) My point was that IF this type of training is or becomes the near-exclusive way of training top agility dogs, and IF it should come to the point where agility competitors looked mostly to agility breeders for their dogs, then agility dogs would gradually lose yet another quality necessary to a good working dog -- the ability to learn from pressure-based, correction-based training, because that ability would no longer be selected for. If that ability needs to be present for a dog to be trained to a high level of stock work, then that ability is automatically, even if unconsciously, being selected for by working breeders. If that ability does not need to be present for a dog to be trained to a high level of agility -- if in fact training in that way is virtually never done with agility dogs -- then that ability is not being selected for.

 

Not that I know a lot of breeders personally, but I do know some people who buy dogs from sport breeders and none of them are looking for a c/t trainability in a dog. These are Agility folks, but not Border Collie people. They want dogs who are fast, "drivey", and have good temperaments. They aren't looking for dogs who are going to respond to any particular training method.

 

Not consciously. But if the successful fast, drivey, good-temperamented dogs that they see have all been trained by a particular training method, the ability to respond to that training method is likely going to come with the package when they buy the offspring of those dogs. And the ability to respond to a different training method is not necessarily going to be a part of that package.

 

HOWEVER, what I have drawn from this discussion is that both of my premises are wrong. IF all-positive mark/reward training methods are not particularly prevalent among top agility competitors/ breeders, and IF there is not an increasing trend for agility competitors to get their dogs from agility breeders, then this issue does not loom particularly large.

 

There's also this:

 

Now, with shock collars it is different since pain is involved. We DO know from field retrievers that there are few lines that can be trained w/o shock collars anymore C/t doesn't involve pain, it is a motivation to do something, not a motivation NOT to do something the dog already wants to do. An innate motivator is the highest. When selecting for the negative the dogs with low pain tolerance would be ruled out quickly. When offered something good, almost any temperment would work for it (provided the motivator was meaningful to the animal)

 

I think this is a good point. As I said early on, one of the things that got me thinking about the relationship between training methods and selection was the fact that no good sheepdog trainer that I know of uses a shock collar in training, and one of the chief reasons given against using them is that over time they will fundamentally change the breed and the way the breed learns. If you train with a shock collar, only the dogs who can stand up to that kind of training will be successful, and since the successful dogs are the ones that get bred, gradually the subtler, more responsive dogs will be culled out and the breed will become hardened so that shock collars will be necessary to train them -- softer training methods will no longer work. Since one of the best things about the border collie breed is how eager and willing they are to learn, and how responsive they are to their handlers, I have always found this a very compelling argument. But I think Pam is right that all-positive training would not change descendants as quickly as shock collar training would. With all-positive training you are not actively selecting against the trait in question (i.e., pressure/correction based trainability); you are just selecting without regard to it, just as you're selecting without regard to balance, stock sense, etc.. With shock collar training, OTOH, you are applying much more selection pressure. You are immediately ruling out the dogs who cannot learn by that method (I used the terms "hard" and "soft" earlier, and I guess they're okay as shorthand, but I don't really like them, and they can designate so many varied qualities that they lead to confusion.). Of course, the dogs who CAN learn by that method may also be dogs who could learn by the traditional pressure/correction method also, just as the the working dogs who learn by pressure/correction are also dogs who can learn other stuff by mark/reward. But it seems like (I'm still mulling this over) you're lopping off the dogs who can't stand up to shock collar training in a much more direct way. I guess I think that's more akin to conformation breeding, where breeders are often consciously selecting for traits that are incompatible with working ability, rather than just without regard for working ability.

 

I have a feeling that all of this probably sounds like gibberish to everyone but me. And maybe even to me.

[Eileen Stein]

ETA: I have been meaning to ask all you grammar people... do you capitalize Border Collie like a name, or leave it lower case, border collie, as a description like grandparents?

 

This is an idiosyncratic answer rather than a grammarian's answer, but I began using lower case for the name in the days before AKC recognition, in the hope of subliminally suggesting that this is not really a Breed like you Kennel Club folks think of a "Breed," it is just a little strain of farm dogs bred to get a job done -- not worth you bothering with, really. Since recognition, I have tended to keep using lower case for the traditional border collie, and upper case Border Collie for the AKC dogs, since the AKC style is to capitalize both words. But this really is just me. I know people who use lower case on the ground that "border collie" is not a proper name in the grammatical sense, and others who capitalize because the AKC does and they oughta know.

[Root Beer]

HOWEVER, what I have drawn from this discussion is that both of my premises are wrong. IF all-positive mark/treat training methods are not particularly prevalent among top agility competitors . . .

 

On reflection, Eileen, I wouldn't say that you are entirely wrong on this. It's just not an across the board thing.

 

One thing that I know is that the top agility competitors/trainers are using pretty much 100% reinforcement based methods for teaching the dog the foundation Agility behaviors. At least, I gather this from the methods that are coming to us on their DVD's and in their books.

 

While you will still find this in some pet-oriented Agility classes, the top trainers are not teaching us to introduce our dogs to contacts by dragging them over the boards by their collars, nor to teach tunnels by shoving dogs into them, nor to flood dogs who are nervous about interacting with the equipment. I assume that these people who are making good money from their seminars, books, and DVD's are using their own methods! And most of them are more than effective for the average Agility trainer/competitor and most are very enjoyable for both dog and handler.

 

Most of the top Agility trainers advocate using shaping to allow the dogs to become familiar with the equipment and to learn how to execute each piece properly. While some still use lures and targets, even that has fallen out of fashion to a large extent. It is becoming a common principle that behaviors that are shaped through the process of the dog offering the behavior on his or her own and then heavily rewarding the dog when correct are behaviors that dogs carry out with greater confidence and they endure. (And yes, this is hotly debated on an internet near you!!).

 

That said, once the dog understands how to complete each behavior correctly, there is a significant divergence in training and handling styles among everyone, including the top people. This is where a totally reinforcement based approach becomes much more difficult to find.

 

Let's take a contact, for instance. Say four trainers have done the foundation work and their dogs have a fully trained and well practiced contact behavior. All four are competing at your local Agility trial and all four of their dogs miss the A-Frame contact. You are likely to see this kind of variety:

 

Trainer A: The dog missed a contact. No big deal. The trainer makes a mental note to go home and reinforce the contact behavior. It's just a game. The dog did his best. They finsh the course, the dog gets a lot of love for giving it his best, and that's that.

 

Trainer B: The dog missed a contact. This isn't good and the dog must know that. The trainer shouts "WRONG!" so the dog knows he messed up, but that's over now and they go on, finish the course, and the dog gets a lot of love for giving it his best.

 

Trainer C: The dog missed a contact. That is unacceptable. The handler stops, barks, "DOWN". The dog and handler leave the ring, but that's over now. The dog gets no love or anything, but is put away without any feedback for a while.

 

Trainer D: The dog missed a contact. That's a disgrace. The handler shouts, "SHAME!" and they walk off the course together. As they walk off, the handler continues to let the dog know in a disapproving voice that he has ruined the run, ruined the handler's life, and is just the worst kind of dog imaginable. (Maybe I'm exaggerating just a little, but I've seen very close to this)

 

No, there isn't going to be an all-reinforcement based trend in the near future. Trainer B might go for it, Trainer C is highly unlikely to go for it, but Trainer D ain't havin' it.

 

People are people and the same style is never going to appeal to everyone. Now, to be fair, I have never heard the attitude of Trainer D actually advocated by anyone (although I've seen a more than a couple of people act like that at trials), but Trainer A, Trainer B, and Trainer C - and a lot in between - are all within the realm of possiblity among the Agility masses.

[Rave]

Interesting discussion. One question I have though is this, and if it's already been discussed just tell me to shut up and go back to read. How can you be sure that breeding dogs who don't face the pressures of stockwork, and therefore it's unknown if they have that capability, decreases the ability to handle said pressure? Is it really a characteristic that will evolve and shape future progeny? After all, it's not an unused appendage.

 

For example, I have the ability to handle stress on the job. If I always happen to hold jobs with no stress throughout my entire life, do my children/grandchildren/great-grandchildren/etc.. lose the ability to handle stress? I doubt it. Do my future children inherit my fear of snakes too (provided they're never around to see my reaction in their formative years lol)? Neither my mom nor dad were scared of snakes, but I run screaming like a girl the other way... am I adopted? ;-)

[juliepoudrier]

Laura,

I think the answer lies in the fact that the ability to take pressure isn't likely encoded by a single gene or set of genes and inherited separately from the other genes that make up the complete package of stockworking ability. So you can't consider the ability to take pressure as a heritable trait *by itself* but rather as the whole package that makes a working stockdog a working stockdog. However, if you start to choose for specific parts of that package (say, speed only or biddability only) or against other parts (ability to take pressure or ability to read stock and react appropriately), whether consciously or not, you will change the make up of that complete package (through emphasizing and de-emphasizing traits) that encodes for the whole stockworking dog. Does that make sense?

 

I don't think human genetics analogies hold up because the mating process is much more random (in terms of specific characteristics) than it is with domesticated animals. Most humans don't look for traits that complement or reinforce their own when they decide to procreate, and yet that's exactly what we do with animals--at least those that are intentionally bred with some purpose in mind. So even if you handle stress and always work in a stress-free environment, you're only half the equation, and the only way to actually run that experiment would be if people like you always produced children with other people just like you (who can handle stress, but always work in stress-free environments) down through several generations and then tested those later generations to see if they could handle stress. Wanna try it? lol!

 

J.

[Smokjbc]

How can you be sure that breeding dogs who don't face the pressures of stockwork, and therefore it's unknown if they have that capability, decreases the ability to handle said pressure? Is it really a characteristic that will evolve and shape future progeny? After all, it's not an unused appendage...

 

For example, I have the ability to handle stress on the job. If I always happen to hold jobs with no stress throughout my entire life, do my children/grandchildren/great-grandchildren/etc.. lose the ability to handle stress? ...

 

 

Personally, when I see second or third generation "working bred" dogs, the most common problem they have is not lack of desire to work, but they often lack ability to handle pressure. This may be partly because raised in a pet environment, they haven't had a chance to develop the ability to take a correction or have things not always be hunky-dory all the time (my own pets in my house have things pretty hunky-dory off of stock, so that's not a criticism of pet life.). But I find that if someone brings a predominantly pet dog from successful working parents, it will likely want to work no matter what- whether the sheep look at it funny or the stranger waves a stick at it. I think the ability to take pressure from stock and handler is one of the most important attributes a good dog has and it is crucial to continue to select for it.

 

Comparing human qualities/"breeding" to dog breeding is not relevant, at least not in this instance- IMHO .

[Rave]

hmm I'm all for experimenting... can I pick the guys? ;-)

 

Since the OP wasn't directly asking about the "whole package", but rather the ability to handle pressure, I focused on that aspect in my answer as well. I know several dogs who have the ability to work, but suck at handling pressure, including my own dog Wick.

[Sue R]

If you are training a dog to work livestock, it would disrespectful to the sheep not to correct the dog. You need to protect the sheep as efficently as possible. The dog needs to learn that straight off...A working dog is going to have to take correction from the handler if for no other reason than for its own safety: "No! Don't go in there!!!"...A dog that leaves the training field when corrected tells may be telling you a lot about itself and may save you a lot of time and frustration...It's kind of hard for me to even imagine a working dog being trained without corrections.

Thats very nice and clearly stated.

I think that maybe part of the problem here is that some folks are putting the work their dogs do first, and some folks put the dogs first. There is nothing wrong with putting your dog first, and I mean no disrepect in writing this. Many of us engage in activities becaue it is fun for us and fun for our dogs. If it stopped being fun, we wouldn't do it. The owners of working dogs have a different perspective: the work comes first. In some cases, this can lead to a dog getting killed doing its work. Or it can mean that a dog that can't or won't work gets sold or retired to pet status. But the work is more important than any individual dog, even though they love their dogs very much. (This may be weird to some of you, but that is how it is.) This mind set creates a very different set of expectations, and sometimes it's hard for ideas to get through the membrane seperating the groups. My apologies as I have poked at the barrier here if I have offended anyone, as I have found this to be a thoughtful discussion.

This is from Carolyn's very good post. I hadn't given this too much thought until I read the post. One clinician, a large-scale rancher whom I respect greatly, says that he can't let himself become attached to a dog that hasn't proven itself capable and willing to do the work he requires, on the ranch and on the trial field.

 

We are perhaps not quite typical, or maybe just typical of many people who come from a "pet perspective" to a "working dog perspective". We have found that, once a dog comes into our household, we would only consider "passing it on" if it turned out that it could not live in our home with us and our other animals, no matter how we tried to deal with or manage it. So far, fortunately, that has only happened once and the one dog was retired (he was older) to live with our daughter, since he and the younger working dog had a level of animosity that resulted in injuries (to a family member breaking up a fight, as well) that we were not able to overcome.

 

For some situations, like in close quarters (since we have cattle, not sheep), we don't use the dogs at all unless we feel it will be a safe situation (we might use a dog to move calves/weanlings in a pen with sufficient room, but not use them on cows in the same pen). The only times that dogs have been placed (actually, the dog placed himself in that position) in a situation of particular danger, is when Rocket has protected Ed more than once from aggressive animals. A dog in our situation could be injured or killed in the course of everyday work but not because we placed the dog knowingly in an high-danger-potential situation (like working in a small pen where the dog could not avoid a kick or might be kicked against a firm barrier by a cow).

 

So, I guess we are a bit of a hybrid of these situations - the dogs and the work are both important but, if push came to shove, we'd put the dog's welfare ahead of the work, even if it meant having to get another dog that was capable of doing the work. Maybe that is due to our long history of pet dogs before getting any real working dogs.

[Ooky]

I think human temperaments are often quite influenced by genetics. The type of inheritance Laura is discussing (if I don't use it, it goes away), is pseudo-Lamarckian. He was an early evolutionary biologist who postulated things like the giraffe got his long neck by physically stretching it during his lifetime. Then, when he mated, his progeny would have ever-so-slightly longer necks, who stretched theirs too, and so on. But they now know this is not how anything is passed down.

 

In reality, giraffes have a variety of neck lengths naturally, due to variations in the genes that code for neck structure. At some point, pressure occurred such that giraffes with longer necks (by genetic accident) actually got more food than those with shorter necks. Thus, more of them lived to reproduce than the short necks, and also reproduced more successfully (more babies AND more babies that lived to reproduce themsleves). The shorter necked ones, while still giraffes, didn't do as well, so the prevalence of long-necked giraffes slowly increased. But, if you take a giraffe now and put it in an enclosure where it doesn't need to use it's neck length, then it doesn't mean the babies will immediately start having shorter necks. They only would if over many generations you had one of the following situations:

 

1) there is no human-induced preference over who gets fed more, or who gets bred more in that pen. Giraffes (I'm making this up, don't know if it's true) have neck ailments that could actually affect how easily they are born, or whether they injure their neck, so there is a release of selection pressure FOR long necks such that the pressure against long necks (which was there all along) is allowed to have an effect. This is often the case, there are often pressures pushing for and against any given complex trait, it depends on the environment which is more important.

 

2) Humans start breeding for shorter necks intentionally.

 

But I do think human studies of unrelated babies switched at birth and separated twin studies have shown some strong genetic influence on "temperament" in humans (for lack of a better word). One I remember quite well was 2 women switched at birth, one born to a very studious, serious family but went home with a gregarious family. The other was born to the gregarious family and went home with the studious one. The girl raised in the gregarious family was shy and sheltered and bookish her whole life. The one raised in the studious family did not excel in scholarly pursuits but was very popular, sarcastic-humorous, and talkative.

 

So, to answer Laura's question, I DO think not selecting for an ability to handle pressure could do something to get rid of this trait - ESPECIALLY if people are selecting for something else that is often found in dogs that don't handle pressure very well. And to bring it back to the human example, if Laura never held a job that made her handle stress, the ONLY way this would be analogous would be if her bosses were breeding the employees, and didn't breed Laura because they didn't care if she handled stress or not, never testing it. Then, they breed people (without knowing it) that can't handle stress. Laura's children (if the bosses let her have any ) wouldn't be affected, because she carries whatever genes allow her to have a solid enough "temperament" to do this. They would still inherit those genes. Or, I guess to make it more real world - if Laura met her mate at work, and she therefore mated with someone who couldn't handle stress because she didn't KNOW they couldn't handle stress based on what their job was like, that could lead to less stress-resistant kids. But the 2nd scenario doesn't apply to dogs, because it has more to do with mate-choice, which dogs don't get to do.

 

We do it for them (outside of accidental breedings!)

[Eileen Stein]

Rave, I think Ooky's explanation is great, but you might also find it interesting to read this. It is simplified, and it's outdated in several ways (most notably that it was written at a time when AKC was saying it would close its Border Collie studbook in three years, and it's directed at that set of facts), but I think it speaks to the questions you're raising.

[Caroline Reichard]

Jeez, I try really hard not to wear my dog training hat to classs or my philosopher's hat to the training field, but you guys are really making it hard. If you are not carefeul these discussions are going to qualify as philosophy! I successfully resisted the Very Strong Temptation to be a pedantic PITA on the happiness question (no one ever suggested defining what they meant by happiness, which for me would have been the starting point of the discussion). But now I must weigh on the subject of humans and how they respond to pressure, whether the tendancy is inherited, etc.. Perhaps the glass of red wine at my elbow is to blame; who knows?

 

There are a lot of ways to describe distinguishing differences between humans and animals, but surely one of the most important differences is our ability to make choices (and often even rational choices) where animals cannot. One of the coolest things about working dogs is that they also make choices about what they want to do: trainers of stock dogs may use lots of pressure, but the choice of whether or not to work is ultimately up to the dog, which I find totally awesome. But the range and depth of human choices is so immense compared to animals that they might as well be (cough) different species. Humans can choose whether or not to be afraid of snakes, or whether they want to get the college degree, or whether or not they really need a third dog. And as I said, sometimes these choices can even be rational! Anyway, I think you won't get very far discussing human responses to fears, pressures, and opportunties without refering to our ability to choose.

 

I am very sorry for this aside and will try not to do it again.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Laura, not to pick on Wick, so I'll pick on her littermate. Jen looked beautiful in the round pen and even in an arena-sized paddock doing approximately PN level work (east coast PN). When I say beautiful, I mean good enough that Jack Knox told me to contact him when she was trained up, as he had a cross in mind.

 

When I exposed her to working my large flocks of heavy sheep, ewes mixed with lambs, rams during tupping - she fell to pieces.

 

What Julie was saying about "handling pressure" being a multifaceted characteristic is the key here to understanding why this happened. Several working trainers worked with her and explained the pieces that were missing with her. Many of them could have made a decent dog of her, but none of them thought she'd make a good full-time farm dog.

 

Jen had tons of drive to find balance, plenty of push and power, an exquisite ability to read stock. All of these things help a dog be able to overcome pressure. Self confidence comes from power (and it goes the opposite way, too). Balance and stock reading allow a dog to get reinforcement for getting to the "happy place."

 

That's only a fraction of the tools a dog has/needs to keep on an even keel under the stress of working stock. Things Jen lacked - she had a minimal desire to be a team player - she hated anyone to interfere with her own micromanaging of the stock. Jack explained to me a few years ago, how this happened from the breeding choices in their situation - I'll discuss it privately if you are curious. It's not a secret, it's just not particularly relevant here.

 

Additionally, she was SO intense to find balance that every little thing was a HUGE event. Working any sheep but super boring knee knockers sent her into a tizzy. Imagine being as sensitive to hearing as an owl, and being dropped into a rock concert. I tried for five years to desensitize her but it was an insurmountable mismatch for my situation.

 

What if I had stopped with the super boring knee knockers, assumed she had the whole package therefore, and bred her to a stud that also only ever worked school sheep? He might make up for her holes, or he might not.

 

So that's how you can have a dog that seems to have what it takes, but it requires the right level of training to get the full picture. One also needs the experience to see the holes as they appear and understand what they are - and how to correct them with proper matchups, if it's possible.

 

The crazy thing is that EVERY characteristic is like that. Super complex, unpredictable in how they come out in each dog. Work is the only way to evaluate the whole enchilada - and ironically it's the simplest way to do it - if the job gets done, the dog's got what it takes.

 

Jen would leave me standing in a field with a group of sheep while she ran back to the house, or refused to move from balance, or cut off a group and took them off 300 yards away to amuse herself. That was pretty black and white, when I finally accepted the reality of the situation.

 

I hope that makes sense.