One of the things I’ve always loved about people in the UK is generally speaking, as a culture we hold dogs in high regard. There’s a great deal of Dog pride amongst owners especially when training and behaviour are mentioned. That’s great until your dogs behaviour deteriorates, and suddenly you feel like a bad owner. What adds to the pain is that suddenly everyone has advice, but you’re stared at in disbelief when you try to explain that you’ve tried that idea and it didn't work… “Well you must be doing it wrong because it worked on my dog”. Owners can end up in tears. Apparently there’s “no bad dogs only bad owners”.
In truth, we can have a huge impact on our dogs’ behaviour, both positive and negative. But that’s not the end of the story.
Every dog just like every person has a unique character and disposition, some can be easy to live with, some hard work, the foundations are built whilst the pup is very young, often through interactions with its brothers and sisters. If the pup in question always wins the toy by growling and intimidating then it’s likely to continue. Likewise if a pup is always successful at avoiding being bitten by giving up the toy then he will continue that strategy. In the ideal world the pups would get a mix of behaviours due to experiencing different out comes, but there’s lots of variables so each pup leaves the litter at 8 weeks as an individual.
If you then add breed genetics to the mix, such as a Border Collies desire to herd or a Jack Russel’s desire hunt the intensity of that drive is another variable effect. A strongly driven Collie will be far more prone to rounding up the kids in the park and even giving them a cheeky nip than a less driven dog.
We can keep going, responses to the environment such as how your dog responds to traffic, some dogs ignore it others desperately want to chase lorries, loud noises to some dogs are interesting others want to run for their lives! Each dog will deal with things differently and with a different level of intensity.
Reactivity is another variable, some dogs take a little prompting before they react others may appear to be on a hair trigger.
So if you happen to see someone struggling with a dog always remember how variable individual dogs truly are, it may be an inexperienced owner (we all start somewhere), or it might be a very experienced and capable handler dealing with a particularly difficult, or new dog.