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Originally Posted by gemy   wonderful post, you are wise way beyond your years!
Our gal Zoey was very much like Jackson. She came to us at 7.5 mths old, and liked only sticks. She didn't really know how to "play" with humans. Oh she always wanted to run and chase Magic, who quite frankly if I was out and about he wasn't too interested in doing. What Moms was doing, was she going to throw a toy or need me to do something was very high on his radar.
Gradually, very gradually, she did finally get the concept of retreive, but still for her the grandest fun was chasing Magic as he went for the ball. It is a little harder in multi dog households to train up a dog.
It took Zoey 3 summers to learn to swim. As compared to Razz and Magic one summer.
Razzle came to us much earlier, and he too is very toy driven. It is just easier when the pups are young and come from a good breeder and trainer, to instill toy drive.
But here is where "personality" comes in. Zoey would always lag behind. She was much more timid/shy and not a confident dog. And that translated across a wide spectrum of activities.
So toy drive is a short form to say "working drive".
I truly believe that even household "pets" are much happier, more fullfilled if they have some tasks to do. Be that fetching a ball, or retreiving your slippers.
And dogs do so love the great outdoors. A small walk. A visit to the pet store. a visit to a park. There is so much you can do to enrich your dogs life. |
I saw your post after mine, and totally agree!! We are basically saying the same thing in a different way!
But I 10000% agree.
Same thing w/ swimming with Jackson, now he was always into water, so it was already "somewhat" natural to him, however diving in did not just come on his own. It took encouraging. His first summer, he did not dive in ever. Second summer, he begin diving in the pool from a raft. So he would first jump onto a raft, then dive into the pool that way. His third summer, he finally began diving in off the side! It took time, practice, encouragement. If I had just never done anything about it, he probably would not really care about the pool, and definitely wouldn't be diving in. I am so glad I worked on too and encouraged it because it's his fav thing in the world to do and provides him an outlet, and great exercise!
Even with trick training, I enjoy doing tricks where he has to really put his trust and faith into me. Jumping onto my back and staying there, putting his feet on mine and walking, etc, these things mean (to me) that he trusts me enough to do such things. I want him to know he can always trust me to guide him.