23 Úno Your dog has a secret, limited counter and it may be getting lower

It is a recurring theme on this blog: me reminding you to think carefully about your training, to be mindful. It’s simply part of the process that I urge you to consider how to teach your dog new exercises, how to manage your training sessions, and so on. Today, I want to talk about another topic that I see numerous handlers not giving enough thought to, squandering their hard work spent training their beloved dog. 

Striving towards trials

It’s no secret that trials and competitions are the pinnacles of all the effort put into training your dog. All of the hard work and countless hours at the field culminate at the trial when you finally receive an excellent grade or maybe even a cup, ribbon, or medal. So, naturally, we all try to work our way towards trials, prepare our dog for them meticulously, and then enjoy the spoils of a flawless and good-looking obedience routine.
The problem is that I often see handlers not thinking it through when it comes to which trials they’ll be entering into and when they’ll be attending, and this can potentially cause big problems in their dogs‘ lives. 

The event counter

The easiest way you can imagine and understand this concept is by considering every dog to have a counter of sorts — a counter that indicates how many trials or competitions (let’s call them “events,” collectively) the dog is able to get through over the course of his life. When this counter reaches zero, it means that the dog would now be unable to get through a trial because he has already seen through all of your tricks and can’t be bothered to perform at the trial.
This is a very simplified way of looking at this, but it’s actually pretty accurate. Imagine an older, low-energy, comfort-loving, family-owned overweight labrador retriever. Do you think he could be able to get through ten trials? Probably not.
If given enough thoughtful training, he could potentially get through one or two entry-level trials much to the delight of his family. It makes me really happy when I can help someone make something like this happen. However, it is unrealistic to think that such a dog could do ten trials without any problems.
Now, imagine a young, high-drive, trained-from-puppy-age, workaholic Belgian Malinois. Can he do two trials? For sure. Can he do ten? Probably, yes. Can he do a hundred? No. 

Even such a dog as a highly-trained Belgian Malinois has its limits. If you subject him to trial after trial, his counter will start going lower until he simply just can’t be bothered. He probably won’t refuse to work like a low-drive dog would, but he will start performing his own idea of obedience at the trials which the judges probably won’t like very much. 

Raise your dog’s counter by training mindfully

The number of events a dog can go through is finite. The number varies considerably, but it is always finite and is influenced by training, breed, temperament, age, drive, health, and various other factors, like even the experience and talent of his handler.
If someone trains their dog poorly, does not prepare them for situations that can occur at a trial, does not motivate their dog enough, or even unfairly corrects them, their event counter goes way down. Such a dog, after recognizing the trial situation, will refuse to work, knowing that he won’t get any rewards or punishments. In this case, the event counter can drop to just one or two trials before the dog consistently recognizes a trial and acts accordingly.
On the flip side, with thoughtful training, patient teaching of exercises, and proper preparation for trials, you can significantly raise a dog’s event counter. I personally think that should be the goal of every handler. Why put in all of that hard work training your dog to just show it off only once or twice?  

Overdoing trials = destroying your dog’s counter

Apart from training, a dog’s event counter is also influenced by how often a dog attends a trial. I have personally seen this burnout occur in a very young dog around three years old— nice, medium-drive, happy dog. The problem was that he had like eight trials under his collar, and all of them occurred within the span of just one year.
The dog was more or less ruined. He already had no joy in training anymore. He was so often confronted with no rewards, and with the difficult and stressful situation he was faced with at trials, he just lost his motivation entirely.
With a lot of work and patience, this burnout could hopefully be resolved within a few years, but I thought it was such a waste. If the handler had spaced the trials out over a longer period of time, the dog would have performed much better and wouldn’t have lost his motivation. His event counter would not have gotten dangerously close to zero.
Please think about this issue when making plans to train your dog and involve them in such competitions. I generally don’t recommend trialing a female dog under two years of age and a male dog under two and a half to three years of age. Males generally develop more slowly mentally than females. Younger dogs are just overgrown puppies, prone to making mistakes and associating those mistakes with the trial situations—and, in turn, lowering their event counter.
Usually, a dog is capable of his best performances around the age of five to six years old. He has no health issues associated with higher age, he is mature, he has a lot of training, and he should have a very strong bond with his handler developed over the years. It’s sad to me to see dogs younger than this prime age basically “used up” in pointless trials, never reaching their peak potential. 

Be mindful of your goals

Think through which trials you want to complete with your dog. What are your goals? Only attend those trials that you really want to attend, those that push you closer towards accomplishing your goals. Never attend a trial with a dog that is unprepared for it just because “it’s close to home”, “they need one more dog to fill up the limit to conduct the trial”, “I want to test the dog and how he will perform under pressure” or other similar bullshit reasons. Don’t test your dog; prepare him and then easily pass the trial with flying colors.
Let’s take Archer and me as an example. We want to compete in national competitions—that’s our goal— so we will go through BH-VT, IGP1, IGP2, IGP3, and then the big competitions like qualifications, championships, and such. That’s it. There is no IBGH just for fun. There are no small competitions to win a ribbon and a sack of kibble. Those would simply be wasting one more precious event from our event counter which we want to build up for those events that really matter to us.
Your goals may, of course, be completely different. Maybe you are a beginner and aren’t really sure what you want to do. I recommend sticking to 2 to 3 trials during the course of a year. Usually, trials begin around March and go all the way to October (in the Northern Hemisphere, that is). This means that you can space your trials out with 2 to 3 months between them easily.
Think about your goals and work towards them. Don’t get distracted and squander your dog’s precious and finite event counter. Be mindful, please; and if you get a ribbon or medal, let me know—I’ll be so proud! 

By the way, the photo above is from the very last championship me and Finka attended together. I thought it would fit this topic well. Always makes my eyes kinda moist when I look at it.