Kowpa
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Aug 3, 2003, 12:50 AM
Post #21 of 78
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Re: [doodle] Physical Punishment, YES or NO ?
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Within the world of traditional, compulsion-based training, a myth has arisen that certain breeds are not trainable. Or that certain dogs require "a firm hand! I hear it over and over. "But my dog is different!" You're right. Your dog is different. He's different from evey other dog out there in any number of ways. In the first place, different breeds were bred for entirely different things, and this mean that each breed come with its own set of training challenges. It's a lot easier to teach a Lab to retrieve than it is a Great Pyreness. Teaching tracking to a bloodhound is piece of cake, but this task is a bit more challenging when you're dealing with a Chihuahua Some breeds were bred to work very closely with humans-herding breeds, some working breeds, sporting breeds. These dogs tend to excel at typical obedience behaviours. Other were bred to work completely independently or to do just one thing ( and do it very very well )-livestock guardian breeds, hounds, terriers. These dogs tend to be more difficult to train for obedience behaviours. A dog's breed or combination of breeds, will be one of the factors that determines what the dog learns easily and what he will learn slowly, what she will do simply for the joy of doing it and what she will do only on the basis of "what's in it for me?" Now add to the equation the unique characteristics of individual dogs and their past experiences. Any breeder will tell you that two dogs of the same breed can be as different as night and day. There are Newfies who hate the water, Lab who don't like to retrieve and herding dogs who prefer the couch. There are hard dogs, soft dogs, fearful dogs, confident dogs, friendly dogs, and aloof dogs- and you can find individual of each kind within a single breed! What does this mean to the trainer? It means that smart trainers learn everything they can about dogs in general, about specific breeds and most importantly, about a particular dog's history. This provides a background for identifying what the training challenges will be. But it can be done. A challenge is just that. A challenge. Not an insurmountable obstacle. No dog is immune to the principles of learning. Barring a physical or psychological problem that prevents learning, your dog can be trained to do anything he or she is capable of doing.
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