Drive!

Drive...

It is a word we through out there all the time in the context of canine performance sports and training.  We all use the word as if we all understand the meaning of it and more interestingly as if we all have the same definition of it.  On some level I think we do have similar understandings of the word.

Mary Ann Field who is one of the animal communicators helping Sinco and me with the puppies referred to her scale of 1-10 for drive in her first communication with the pups.  A couple of you wisely asked for more information on her definition of drive.  Good question!  So I asked her.

This is the gist of my conversation with her about it.  She said in her mind, a "10" would be a dog that 80% of the time is on the edge or out of control.   This dog has very little natural self control.  This dog needs lots and lots of mental and physical exercise and lots and lots of lessons on self control. 

She said that a 7-8 would be her dog Zuhm and Sinco.  These dogs like to work, like to have jobs, like mental and physical exercise but they have natural "off" switches and it is not as difficult to teach them self control.  Very often these dogs understand "self control" as another form of working and enjoy it because they just plain enjoy the work and the interaction with the humans.

She said, in her mind a 5-6 would be a dog that would be a good companion dog.  This dog could do performance sports but would probably be best suited for obedience and service dog work.  These dogs don't have as much of a burning desire to work.  They are quite comfortable hanging out around the house too.  These dogs may take a bit more motivational work to get the desired speed from them for agility.

Mary Ann didn't think there would be anything lower than a 5-6 in Sinco's litter.

Now I got to thinking more about drive and more about characteristics of dogs and puppies.  I love thinking about this stuff.

In my mind I came up with this analogy.  A dog with a "10" for drive is akin to a NASCAR race car - this car is designed to 200mph in laps around the track.  There is little need for brakes or power steering with this car.  It easily crashes and burns if things don't go quite right.  There is little use for other speeds other than just plain fast.  It is not a car that would do well in city driving.  The cars like their wide turns on the track.  These are akin to the dogs who never like to collect or slow down for anything.  These are like the dogs who have trouble stopping at the end of contacts, holding start line stays, collecting for weave poles and doing any kind of tight turns.  These are often bar knocking ballistic dogs.

A dog with a 7-8 level of drive would be akin to a sports car like a Corvette or Miatta.  These cars are fun to drive at 120 mph if you can find a place to do it - the wind blowing through your hair going down the freeway.  These cars have more maneuverability than the racecars but it takes some practice to be able to handle these cars at top speeds and to learn how to steer and brake them.  The cars can do city driving as well.  These are akin to the fast dogs that can be really fun and successful to run but take some work to learn how to handle at that rate of speed.  They learn how to decelerate and collect but the timing is critical so they are good at teaching handlers how to handle.

A dog with a 5-6 level of drive is akin to the Cadillac.  These cars are very comfortable to drive down the freeway.  They like the wide open spaces. They can be driven around the city but it is harder for them to go fast in the city - they are bigger and harder to maneuver in tight spaces with speed.  It is akin to a dog becoming demotivated doing a lot of tight turns but finding smooth flowing wide open courses fun and motivating.

Now with that in mind there are a lot of things in between these three categories and other mitigating factors that can affect a dog's aptitude and success in performance sports.

Some of those things are as follows:

Independence.  If you have a dog with a "10" for drive and a high degree of independence you will have a tough time getting a working relationship with this dog.  However you can have a dog as a "10" but with less of a tendency toward independence and it could be a bit easier to get a working relationship with the dog and could help in teaching them self control.  Likewise a dog that is a 6 in drive but high in independence would not necessarily be a good candidate for a service dog.  A dog with a high degree of independence and with little regard or use for people will be a hard dog to do performance sports with.  A dog with some degree of indepence is good for being able to problem solve and think on their own such as in herding.  For agility we don't want dogs to be overly dependent on us but to be able to go out and work away from us at times while still working with us. 

Biddability/willingness to please.  This in my mind is one of the most important characteristics for a good performance dog.  I want a dog who wants to work with me and who cares about working with me as a teammate.  If the dogs is not that interested in pleasing people it will again be hard to get a good working relationship with the dog regardless of the drive level.  Dogs who enjoy learning and working with people will making training for performance sports much easier and more enjoyable.  A dog that doesn't care about being wrong is going to be much harder to train than a dog who really wants to be right.

Self-confidence.  This is another very important characteristic.  I can do so much more with a confident puppy and progress so much faster.  I have seen a couple of high drive dogs who are also fearful.  They are hard to work with because they want to be busy but they are afraid so they often develop superstitious behaviors to keep themselves moving and busy while trying to self-calm in the face of fear.  This can be hard to work with.   A dog with a lot of self-confidence and a drive level of 5 will be much easier to train in agility and often will enjoy the game which can help them be able to do agility well at the upper levels of competition.  I have had dogs in this category who were 5-6 drive level in agility but they had a lot of self-confidence and with good motivational training these dogs went on to earn ADCH and NATCH titles - both of which require a high rate of speed on course.  Dogs who are confident will also tend to better in trial settings.  I have a young dog who thinks very highly of himself and he exudes confidence.  This makes up for a lot of things because he will work through things and he will be less likely to be phased by his environment because he is not self-conscious and he is not that concerned about others.

Forgiveness.  It is important for a good performance dog to be forgiving of the mistakes of the handler.  Dogs are generally pretty forgiving beings but just like people, some are more forgiving than others.  I have a dog who holds grudges like nobody's business.  It is my first dog like this and it means I better darn well get it right the first time!  This is not the kind of dog for a novice handler who needs repetition.  A dog who is forgiving will allow for more repetition or retraining and is better suited for a novice handler.

Determination.  This is in my opinion as aspect of drive and something that can be seen in young puppies.  Dogs who will keep working at trying to get food out of Buster Cubes, or trying to get the toy out from under the dresser, or will keep looking for a lost item or keep working a scent on a track.  This is a positive aspect of drive that I look for in selecting a puppy.  A dog that gives up easily is not as likely to be driven to go faster or to try again when learning.  A lot of determination is something that Sinco has and is likely to show up in some of the pups.  In her case her determination shows up in her desire to please me and in her desire to get my attention.  As a 5 week old puppy she wanted to make sure I knew she wanted me and she escaped out of expens and sought me out in a group of people.  She screamed when I left.  This is determination.  She shows it today when she makes a mistake, like she did at an ASCA trial where she missed the aframe contact.  I brought her back over it to make the point and she did right.  Then we proceeded with the rest of the course and as we headed to the finish line she took off across the arena and went over the aframe (about 50 feet away from me) and did a perfect 2on/2off performance.  It was as if to say "look mom, I really can do it right!"  It made me laugh and really showed me how much she is thinking out there! 

Thinking versus Doing.  There are some dogs who are thinkers - they tend to respond slowly because they are trying to figure out what is wanted/expected.  There are other dogs who react first and just do it and accept the consequences later.  These dogs like to learn by trial and error and have not qualms about making mistakes.  The middle of the road has a balance between thinking and doing.  It is a spectrum with everything in between.  Sinco is definitely more on the thinking end of the scale.  I love thinking dogs.  I've had "doer" dogs before and they are much harder for me to work with because they require more negative markers and corrections to teach them what is expected. 

Energy level.  This is something that is often mistaken for drive.  It can be closely tied to drive and obviously if a dog is going to want to run fast it needs to have the energy to do so.  I have two dogs now who are very high energy.  In my presence they are in constant motion.  One has a lot of self-control and it is easy to redirect her energy.  The other has difficulty stopping her motion and it is much harder to channel her energy.   Sinco can modulate her energy level to the environment beautifully.  Some dogs have a nervous level of energy and can't sleep and need to be crated in order to stop their constant moving.  Other dogs are just so excited and happy and want to go do something and will pester their owners until they go do something. 

Back to drive...

I have also seen dogs have different levels of drive in different situations.  I had a Border Collie who was about a 6 for a drive in agility, about a 5 for drive in obedience and about an 8 for drive in herding.  I had another Border Collie who was about a 9 for drive in agility, herding and obedience yet around the house he was hardly noticed.  He was the best dog around the house - calm and well mannered.  But in a stimulating situation he lost almost all self-control and could be very fast.  I have a Jack Russell who has the drive of "9" for Go to Ground but a drive of 4 for agility and obedience.  Natural instincts can play a part in where the drive will be.  Very few dogs come out of the womb with drive for agility. It is not one of the natural instincts for dogs.  However many dogs increase their drive and enthusiasm for agility over time with appropriate positive training.   Also you can look at drive to work for a toy versus drive to work for food.  It is similar to someone who loves numbers and has a lot of drive to work with numbers but hates working with words.  Then there are others who are the opposite. 

So in sum there is in my opinion an overall drive level of a dog as well as context specific drive levels which may very well be different from the dog's overall drive level.  There are also other characteristics which are equally as important and these can in turn act to modify the drive level of the dog and act to show how that drive will present itself.