Bidability vs. Keenness

[JaderBug]

Bidability vs. Keenness

 

What does each of these mean to you and how do you interpret them? Is one more important to you in a working dog than the other? I understand they are both important, but if a dog is 60/40%, what is the balance you would like to see?

 

Just interested in striking up some conversation :-)

[Joellen]

Well, a wise friend who I have trained with for nearly a decade once told me,

"A good dog will know what to do, but a good dog will do what it's told" ~ Bill Berhow

 

Always made sense to me.

[PSmitty]

Here's how I interpret it: keenness refers to how much desire/instinct the dog has to work stock, while bidability is the dog's desire to work with the human and do what it's told (either on or off stock). In stock work, I guess I'd rather have more keenness, if I had to choose.

 

For example, Alex is very biddable, and we may be able to do some basic "herding" (I know how everyone loves that word), but he's not super keen. I think we can get some stuff done because he's so biddable, but I'd rather see more fire in his belly to work. On the other hand, too much keen and not enough bidability isn't great, either. That kind of describes my other dog I try to work on stock, Jack.

 

I'm going to go 60/40, keenness/bidability.

 

(from a total novice who probably has no business in the conversation)

[Journey]

I don't know that there is a real answer to this. You have to have more than keenness but w/o biddability you might have a shark. You need sense as well. Too soft and all the keenness in the world won't matter. Overly keen, hard but with sense makes for work where it shouldn't be yet they can handle just about anything you face them with. I think it comes down to what each individual handler can handle and what can handle the situation presented.

[Sue R]

I think they are equally important - without keenness, you have nothing. Without biddability, you can't direct that keenness to be truly and functionally useful to you.

 

Keenness without biddability can be counterproductive - the dog that will only gather when you also need a dog that can drive. Or the dog that is so fixated on the heads that he can't either fetch or drive.

 

I have two keen dogs (what I would describe as keen) - one is softer and one is harder. Both are not as biddable as I would like - one perhaps because he is so afraid of losing his cattle, is so pressure-sensitive, hasn't had good handling or training on my part, and maybe just doesn't trust me to be right. The other because he's young and impulsive and doesn't often have his thinking cap on yet. When they *listen* and respond, they are both very useful and productive in their work - when they don't, well, it doesn't get done very well (and by well, I mean calmly, quietly, efficiently, and with minimal stress to all involved).

 

Good question! Thank you for asking.

[Debbie Meier]

Thinking about I don't think that keenness and bidability should be a balance between each other nor should a persson be willing to give up one for the other, I want my dogs to be very keen but also very bidable and if they are lacking in anything natural they also have to be trainable.

 

Last week at our training seminar one of the spectators commented after recognizing that the dogs needed to be able to multitask, the first task is to engage the livestock in a particular fashion and the second is to listen to us, a dog that stops to listen looses control/command of their stock a dog that can't listen while they work ends up working for himself.

[Maja]

Well, a wise friend who I have trained with for nearly a decade once told me,

"A good dog will know what to do, but a good dog will do what it's told" ~ Bill Berhow

Exactly!

 

I would go for 100% keenness and 110% biddability .

 

On a number of occasions, I have come across people thinking that these two things are somehow complementary - if you have more of one it depletes the other. So if a dog is very biddable its keenness becomes suspect. But I disagree with it. In my dog the only thing she loves more than working sheep is her boss-me. So I would like a dog very highly driven - driven to work and driven to work for me.

 

I also made an observation that a dog very keen, may actually be more biddable though less obedient than a dog less keen - that has less to struggle against.

 

I also finally realized why I don't like 99% of nonBCs herding - it's not the lack of skill in them, it is a combined low level of keenness and a low level of biddability that puts me off.

 

Maja

[Mark Billadeau]

biddability: the willingness to follow instructions when they are provided

keenness: a strong desire to work, strong work ethic

 

Both are desirable and not mutually exclusive

 

 

[juliepoudrier]

^^I agree with Mark. That said, if the two did somehow affect one another though, I would opt for greater keenness. You can teach a dog to listen (it may be a long, tough road), but I think it's much more difficult, if not nearly impossible, to "teach" a dog to want to work. (To qualify that latter part, I think you can increase a dog's desire to work to some extent, but you really can't put in what's not there, and such a dog might work well in familiar situations and on well broke stock but would likely give up when the going gets tough.)

 

J.

[bcnewe2]

I have mick who's keeness is 150% but his biddablity is maybe 60-70%. But I also think I lessened his biddability by green training and trying to force him to do things that didn't make since at a early age.

Then there's Dew, who took a while to get her keeness up to a level that could take pressure enough to work her hard and train her equally hard. But she is over 100% with her keeness now. What I have totally enjoy is her extreme biddability.

If I had needed a stronger or more keen dog when she was younger I might of had to get another dog to get things done. But I had the luxury of time and mick to get things done. I feel her power came when her keeness let loose.

Totally different training. I knew much more and she wasn't a shark. Which mick was.

Not exclusive but you sure do benefit from a nice mix. And stm, you can power through without biddability but have to have keeness or the game ends quickly.

[Smalahundur]

Just wondering how this quantifying of those two things work.....

Where lies the 100%?

[Pam Wolf]

The best dogs are a blend of traits, not just one or two, hence the difficulty of breeding great stock dogs. And WHY the breeding is so important and should not be based on color, lenght or coat or set of ears or other such arbitary traits.

 

Dogs need to be keen and biddable, but they also need other traits equally, stock sense/balance/power and that special 'something'=method.

[Liz P]

They are two seperate traits IMO.

 

I have a dog who I would score about 9/10 keen and 9/10 bidable. Sometimes she is over eager to work, but she is bidable enough that I can keep her in check.

 

My worst working dog ever was a 10/10 bidable but 2/10 keen. He would often quit on me when he got bored or tired.

 

Most of my dogs have been more like a 6 to 8/10 keen and 4 to 6/10 bidable. They mature into great working dogs but can be very trying when they are younger!