Instinct and Age:
A dog’s instincts and state of mind don’t change with age - they may become evident with age, but they don’t change. That is, some instincts and and traits may not be obvious until the dog becomes older, such as a dog lifting it’s leg.
Instincts can show at different ages in different dog’s, and the age at which they show is inherited. Some dog’s ‘working instinct’ (the keeness to work) surfaces very young, before weaning even. In others it may not surface until 10 months old, or even older in some cases. Personally I like to see it developed fairly strongly by about four months of age, otherwise you can waste too long waiting to see whether a pup is going to be any good or not. And, despite things that have been said to the contary, there is no other advantage in either late or early starters. You can have late starters that are over-keen and excitable, and you can have early starters the same. And you can have early or late starters that are calm and sensible. It all depends on the bloodline.
However, once a pup starts, i like to see it start correctly. Some pups show intrest, but in the end not in full force, most pups that are like this are weak, fear is the big thing that contributes to this. Often they show that they are keen when the sheep are moving, but then again when the sheep stop cantering around they seem to lose concentration and intrest.
As they gradually gain gain confidence they begin working more strongly. However, some weak pups can still start strongly, particularly if they have very strong instincts and a lot of eye, while in contrast a gradual starter may be that way simply because it has only weak instincts. So although instinct surfaces at varying ages, once it has appeared it doesn’t alter. It’s expression may alter through gains in confidence or training, but the instinct itself doesn’t alter, and the juvenile instinct will always suface when the dog is pushed to it’s limit.
This means that a dog that doesn’t have natural holding ability as a pup will never have real holding ability, even though you may b able to teach it too keep out wide and so on. So don’t make too many excuses for a pup’s faults, because a pup’s faults will become an adult dog’s faults.
This is particularly true in practical work. If a dog is kept solely for trial work, or on small or easy properties, you may be able to hide it’s faults, however, if you push your dogto it’s limit’s in hard practical work they will always surface.
Strength of Instinct:
A dog’s instincts can vary from very weak to very strong. For example, some dogs heading instinct (particularly the three sheep bred collies) is excessively strong and requires a lot of control to harness it, whereas a dog whose instinct is not so strong will be easier to control.
However, some breeders, in trying to breed easily controllable dogs (which is good depending on how it is achieved), simply breed dogs with fairly weak instincts, that is, lacking real keenness. But, even though such dogs are easier to handle, they tend to lack much ‘Heart’ (the desire to keep working in the face of just about any hardship). It is possible, though, to breed controllable dogs with strong instincts and great heart. The clue lies in breeding calm dogs with the right instincts.
