Intelligence is Useful in Dog Agility

Peta Clarke brings up some interesting information when it comes to intelligence and training animals.

One of the best ones is that if we fail in teaching an animal it should fall on the trainer not the animal.

It is up to us to discover the talents and abilities of the animal we are working with and capitalize on them.

With dogs this can be subdivided by breed.  While all dogs can learn how to complete agility obstacles, not all excel.

It has little to do with intelligence per se, and more to do with the inbred abilities of the breed.

By definition intelligence is the ability to respond quickly and successfully to a new situation, but Smarts comes in all forms.

Border Collies have been bred for years on end with focus on train-ability for tasks and following direction from a handler.

Terriers on the other hand have been bred to be strong willed, tenacious, self thinking dogs relying on themselves.

Both are highly skilled at what they do, but one has the desire to please the human the other to please an instinct.

So it is up to us, the human, to find ways to teach our dogs according to their learning style, not the dogs responsibility to adapt to ours.  In this way all dogs have the ability to do well and even excel in dog agility.