Balance can come in many ways and over a large period of time. Sometimes the opposite of "balance" is what is needed. How it all relates to the individual dog, that particular dogs idiosynchrasies, etc.cdwyer wrote:With all this being said, why would it be bad to blend and balence water and land (correctly) from the beginning rather than in steps. I realize its easier to teach and correct on land, you get that stuff behind you so that the transition into water is smoother and does not risk water sessions going "sour" and developing a bad water attitude.
But why not break the water force, water T, swimby into componets at the same time your doing your land work. Once you get to the point of swim by, your already about done, you are just polishing it, the dog is comfortable and has developed good water habits & attitude.
It makes so much more sense to build a dog with good behavior from the beginning, that turns into good habits. A habit becomes a habit and if the dog is bad, it's probably a lack of effort which a correction for is black & white. The other reason would be lack of experience. If you do your job as a trainer, you will see when the dog is over his head. Lack of effort is easy to see and distinguish from lack of experience.
Take a complex tune-up. A complex water tune-up is by no means a balancing thing all by itself but it means to restore balance. Actually a complex water tune-up is very much the opposite of training balance. Take a cheaty dog and run some and you probably haven't improved that dogs willingness to handle shorelines very much, maybe even caused a propensity to cheat. But take a watery one and then you are hopefully making that dog way more comfortable around them.
Trainers, probably like your Scott, have a sense about what a dog needs and when he needs it. Or when to worry about something or when to not give it much of a thought. Some "things" within dogs, things like their persona, the way the mind works (wild&fast or calm&analytical) or any range in between decides how I may deal with a dog on a day-to-day basis.
I know you know this but....when training dogs......They learn to do the "shouldn't's" way easier than they learn to do the "should's".
I have a question.....When we are training dogs are we training them to go thru the motions or are we training them to think thru problems. In my opinion, if they don't have any problems how are they gonna learn to deal with problems?
Was told about a dog once, FC/AFC Rita Reynolds,.....It was said that she could mark so well that when she didn't step on a bird she would have a hard time finding it and get frustrated and then couldn't hunt very well. EVERYTHING is subjective!
Troy