Missy was a “your wish is my command” dog

Kipp was a “I try to be good –  it’s kinda hard sometimes but I still try” dog

Kolt is a “what’s up next, partner?” dog

And then there’s Kenzi. She’s an “I want you to love me, but it’s complicated – I have an opinion and am a bit independent” dog.

She threw me for a loop more than once. Mostly due to her inconsistency. Or maybe it was my expectations that were unreal for her. She loved working with me and was brilliant. Except when she wanted to do her own thing. Unlike the other dogs, I couldn’t trust her or be confident of what behavior that I’d get next.

She’s a wilderness search dog. But I almost scratched her from training a few times. Because she’d come * this * close and then regress.

And then something changed. Not sure exactly what. Maybe it was pack dynamic shift. Maybe it was maturity (at about 5.5 years old). Maybe it was me.

I do know that I had finally just started letting her do her own thing.

Conventional wisdom says that a SAR dog needs to get fulfillment through the work and not be allowed to find fulfillment in the environment around them. And I don’t really disagree with that. When a dog is searching for a person, they NEED to be focused on the job and not conflicted by wanting to chase a squirrel etc. And she had years of drive building, shaping and correcting. She * knew * what she was supposed to do. But she still had wants.

When I got Kolt, I focused on him more and gave her more free rein do do her own thing around the farm. She hunted through the barns, chased squirrels, dug for woodchucks. And, lo and behold, with all of that out of her system she got better and better at SAR work. Focused, persistent, consistent.

It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. But, with the pressure gone and a bit of freedom to do her own thing, she started giving my 100% of her focus when it was time to work. Even more, she’d ignore every distraction in her pursuit of the “victim” at trainings. And, then with the victim found and the job over, her nose would be checking everything else out on the way back to the car.

And she passed her certification testing. But even more, I became confident in her work to the point where I was comfortable certifying her.

All this isn’t to say that you should take your working dog and just turn them loose to do their own thing hoping for the best. That’s usually a recipe for disaster. And not everyone has a situation where it’s fine for a dog to go exploring the barns while you do yard work or something. But it is to say that you need to recognize what your dog needs and treat them as an individual. Even if it’s not quite conventional.

Figure out if you can change that hole a bit and meet that square peg halfway.