[nagdu] Willingness to work and gender

[Shanna Stichler]

I have retired dogs early from both genders. My male I retired for behavioral reasons,and my female at around 3 and a half because she quit working on me. I don't believe her problems were due to gender, but her generally high-strung personality. She basically was hyper-aware of her environment and stressed out easily because of that. Both of these dogs were Labradors. My past two dogs have been females, and both have done, or are doing, excellent work. My previous girl was also a Labrador, but my current guide is a Shepherd. They were/are both confident and intense workers, but in different ways if that makes sense. 

I can't speak to what dogs were like 20 or 30 years ago, but from what I know about that after talking with trainers and even long-time retrains, the dogs were indeed harder and less sensitive as a rule. 

Best,
Shanna

On Mar 2, 2014, at 11:08 AM, Brandy Pinder wrote:

> I have been pondering. 
> Two years ago I received a poodle who after about six months showed signs of not wanting to work. He wouldn't approach curbs or objects as closely as I prefer and would stop walking in harness but as soon as I removed the harness he would walk, put it back on and he would stop. When I worked with a trainer he said the dog didn't look scared just didn't seem to want to go. I contributed it to the fact that he was a poodle and I live in new York city and travel on subways for long commute's daily. A few months after retiring him I had a friend from another school with a four year old lab have to retire her dog for the same reasons. Just recently I have spoken to someone else with a retriever that also did this. They were all males and despite what trainers say I feel that all my males have not been as forceful or confidant in guiding. They seem to suggest things whereas my females have always had this, hey dummy pay attention we are going this way attitude. However, I did no someone else who retired a female for the same reasons. Also, two of the people who's dogs decided they didn't want to work lived in urban areas and not the city. My question for the long time handlers is was this as prevalent twenty years ago. I have had dogs for fourteen years and haven't noticed this phenomenon until recently, but maybe it did happen and and I wasn't aware. I don't mean dogs not wanting to work at seven or eight, I mean three or four. Is it because our environment is crazier and people who are blind are more busy and active? Or is it because schools need to breed softer dogs for their grads for good and various reasons such as physical reasons and the public not understanding corrections? I love an easier dog to handle but is this softness interfering with work. Pinta can be a handful but i prefer some dog distractions over stopping in the middle of interections. Im not trying to start a war just wondering if this happened twenty or thirty years ago. It's just strange to me that all the dogs were different breeds living in different environments all from different schools. And for people who have had multiple dogs what is your feelings on breed? It could be total coincidence that my males were all more subtle and females more obvious. Both worked with enthusiasm but my males were just more subtle. 
> 
> brandy pinder
> Alumni Council -  second vice Chairman
> Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, Inc® 
> and America's VetDogs®, The Veteran's K-9 Corps Inc® 
> Providing "Second uSight"® since 1946
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