Know Your Dog's Limitations

I'm often telling people that it's up to them what standard they want to train their dogs to. In other words so long as they're prepared to put in the effort there's no limit to what they can teach their dog.

But of course that's being a bit over-simplistic.

You have to bear in mind your dog's limitations.

This is a sweeping generalisation and I've seen enough dogs that contradict it to know it's far from cast in stone, but in general its trainability is directly linked to the size of its brain.

And the size of its brain is determined by the size of its skull. So dogs with big wide skulls like labradors and German shepherds are - generally speaking - more intelligent than dogs with narrow skulls like greyhounds and whippets. This is simply down to the fact that there isn't physically enough room for a labrador size brain inside the skull of a greyhound.

So as a general rule you can train a labrador to a far higher level of obedience than a greyhound.

That's why labradors are so often the choice of breed for highly skilled working dogs like drugs detectors and guide dogs.

Did you ever come across a greyhound in one of those roles? I certainly never have, nor do I ever expect to.

(Greyhound fans please don't think I'm 'having a go' at your favourite breed. I'm not - Im just stating a fact. If you've read this newsletter for any length of time you'll know that I have a real passion for sighthounds like greyhounds, whippets, deerhounds etc. As a matter of fact I'm toying with the idea of taking on a rescue greyhound myself.)

And don't forget also that there can be a surprising variation in intelligence between individuals within the same breed. Although as we all know labs can be trained to a very exacting standard, I've also seen some labs that were as daft as a brush.

And on the other side of the coin I have a friend who used to own a greyhound bitch that was extremely biddable. He could make her do things that most dog owners would struggle to get their own animals to do.

But to be honest there are very few dogs that cannot be trained to do the sort of basic things that most pet owners want. Stuff like coming when called, walking to heel, sit/down, stay.

What happens in practice is that the more intelligent dogs tend to learn quicker than others.

So where you might have a labrador happily doing a sit/stay for 5 minutes by the age of 6 months, you might not reach that stage until a year old with a different breed.

But so long as you know what you're doing there's absolutely no reason why you won't get there eventually. Just take it step by step.

I trained a deerhound of mine to drop into a 'down' position with a hand signal at about 50 yards distance from me. And I could also put her in a 'down' that she would hold for at least an hour.

In over 10 years of fairly close involvement with the breed I've never yet come across anybody else with deerhounds trained to a higher standard. In case you're not familiar with them, deerhounds have a very narrow skull just like greyhounds. They are (in my biased view) hauntingly beautiful dogs. By and large they have wonderful temperaments.

But when it comes to the old grey matter, I'm afraid there's really not much there. They come rather a long way down the list when we're talking canine IQ.

BUT...

Although I got her to that level, it took literally *years* before she was at the level that I aim for with all my dogs. Typically for the breed she was a sweet, dear natured girl, but she was as thick as two short planks! She took absolutely *ages* to learn things, but I was determined not to give up on her and my perseverance paid off because I got there in the end.

So try and keep that in mind if you seem to be struggling to make progress. If your dog is bright as a button and picks things up quickly then you should fly through your training schedule.

But if you've got a bit of a thicky, one like my deerhound who takes an age to learn, you'll just have to accept it's going to take you longer to get there.

But there's absolutely no reason at all for you not to succeed eventually. Stick to the right principles, be consistent and take things in nice easy stages.

Recommended reading "Dog Training Blueprint To Success".

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