drive vs energy - Page 1

just wondering

can a high energy dog have no drive? and can a low energy dog have a lot of drive? Or are they almost the samething? Confused here.

       Hey,,,that's a good question...: )

Yap, goes both ways. I know very laid back dogs, easy doing, could be called lazy until you see them work. (they go, and go and go and jut as you think they are done they go even further and work harder!Then I know those ping pong balls like dogs that have little to no drive! I call the annoying!
Then you hale lazy, no drive and also crazy hyper dogs with over the top drives.. all the combo in the world is possible

can you describe the personality of a high energy dog with no drive? thanks

Catman,

I have seen this in a familar dog.  Behavior would be described as a dog that constantly paces, never stops moving even if they are only allowed enough room to pace in circles for hours on end.  Barking for hours and hours and a few more hours, at nothing. or because they are created.  However they dont want to play tug or not a lot, low boiling point so to speak, not a protective dog in this instance.

Catman,

I have seen this in a familar dog.  Behavior would be described as a dog that constantly paces, never stops moving even if they are only allowed enough room to pace in circles for hours on end.  Barking for hours and hours and a few more hours, at nothing. or because they are created.  However they dont want to play tug or not a lot, low boiling point so to speak, not a protective dog in this instance.

a dog like this would be very hard to live with!

I guess puppy mills would produce such things

why do you say the non protective part? are non protective dogs usually of this nature? 


friend of mine had so many problems with their gsd and tried so hard to make things work I wonder if the dog was like this

I made a thread on this a long time ago. Hyperactivity and drive are not the same.

troublelinx's description is quite spot on. These dogs have a lot of excess often nervous energy and no ability to channel it onto anything, such as a ball or a tug. These types of personalities are often overreactive and not responsive to reward. Independent but not in a good way, they do not bond well to a handler and avoidance is often an issue. These personalities often have social problems. Very difficult to train. (catman, this is why you see them less protective, they really don't care)

My daughter's dog is a good example of a lower energy dog with drive. She's a bum around the house. Motivating her to speed up her obedience is a constant challenge. But she will land a vice grip on a tug and hang on it forever, and her grips are very full and strong. It took a long time to get her excited about tracking. My daughter wanted a calm pet, and she encouraged mellow behavior as the dog grew up, so she does not have speed demon recalls/retrieves or flashy, bouncy heeling. I think if she had been given more freedom to be a little wild as a pup she could have been faster, but while my daughter loves schutzhund and obedience she just wanted a buddy she could take anywhere.

GSDPACK and KCzaja, good points. Also, remember energy is not always a good thing or a positive thing. I don't get a lot into the mental aspect of a dog, but for the dog that is a non-stop pacing, no matter how small the space is to do so, something is up. JMO. My male Chow, while I was stationed in Germany did some amazing feats to escape, either outdoors or indoors, outdoors: to run down to the end of the farm road and see the chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys. Wouldn't torment or try to hurt/kill them just wanted to see them. Indoors: just to get out of where I had him and go upstairs to see "OMA"

Did some research and the closest, ( if not what it was), was "Hyper Kinesics" or what I was reading was "The Hyper Kinetic Dog". Other than that Ky-Lin was a great dog, no problems. But boy, rebuilding cellar doors and replacing windows had me pulling some hair out of my head. 

Another time, I'd say @ '96 I worked security at an NIH, (National Institute of Health) Animal Lab. Worked I think 4 nights and said I can't do this and resigned. There were beagles in one section, hundreds of them. One eye was removed and then the eyelid was sewn shut. Not sure what the experiment was but next section to them were these dogs, (I know my dogs, but these I didn't know so I thought they were brought in from another country?) But hundreds of dogs and the entire time they would pace non-stop in circles, non-stop, Their dog feeders were hung from the ceiling like giant bird feeders and they would just keep walking in circles forever. I would call some to come over and as soon as they left me right back into pacing circles. No idea what was happening there? So sad. So my thoughts are something mental. Yes, to an extent can be either controlled, toned down,to an extent or even redirected/refocused.

The two are definitely not the sane action/characteristic.