“Your dog will not have the same enthusiasm if you do not have the desire, or give the dog your best effort in your mutual effort at herding”

Arthur Allen

We’ve got to stop dumbing them down. When buying horses you buy to your level, old lame slow, engine but safe, 16 or older been there done that.. you just hope you don’t get thrown. Even the best horse, grandma broke, will throw you off. When you buy a horse you step up your game. You see a horse can size you up quick, if you’re nervous they are too. If you’re lazy they are too.. we try and buy what suits our level, only because we don’t want to get killed.

When we buy a dog we have none of those worries.. dogs are adaptable they aren’t prey animals. We figure we can mold them into our need.. until you buy a border collie.

I think some will fall into your needs, easy, adaptable, friendly, pliable.. then there’s the good one. The one’s pushing back say …

“Step Up your ability and we can be a team; otherwise while you get your shit together, I’ll do this”

We constantly expect our animals to dumb down to our level.. why not step up to theirs?

While the dog is doing that, you as a handler are floundering.. a great example is when Ron has run my dogs..”they don’t stop very good” .. well I don’t need them to stop “that good” I just run them.

He needed the stop and think, which is fine until it just becomes an excuse. The excuse is you as a handler didn’t evolve with the dog, the dog is trained now and you’re still stuck in first gear.

Step it up, learn to ride, you can’t get killed working your dog.. like you can a horse..

The equine can teach ya some stuff about your game, but so can your dog! Go forward.. evolve! Quit expecting the best working dog on the universe to get dumb!