Hi to all~

I have a puzzler for this morning. I had to leave home for 1 day and night. So, I boarded Ramsey at the "hotel" a wonderful clean place, where he gets exercise and neutral treatment. He has been there a couple of times before.

When I picked him up he was, of course, happy to see me. We had class that night, and he seemed sharper than usual.

Does he need a break? Am I too familiar? He does things happily enough. Maybe he's bored??

Any ideas?

I took a few days off from training and when my dog and I started up again she was more sharp and eager than ever before. It was one of those moments where my dog taught me something (again). I considered it a vacation for my dog. I also found this LB video.

http://leerburg.com/flix/player.php/663/Over_Training_Syndrome/

"We had class that night, and he seemed sharper than usual. "


Also, Carol, could you give detail about what sharp means to you?

I ask this because I think that many dog folks would consider "sharp" to be something fairly specific, along the lines of "reactive, volatile." Is this what you mean?

When I call a dog sharp, as is the case in most of the dog-folks I run with, "sharpness" refers more to alertness, sensitivity to stimuli, quickness to react, than it does to the volatile kind of reactivity. Ed discusses it frequently in some of his older videos, especially in the original ecollar video and the Flinks videos.

Sharpness can be a negative, but a sharp dog can also be a pleasure to train, as their perception can be very keen, and their compliance can be split-second with little hesitation.

It's true that a wide range along the reactive spectrum can be meant when someone says "sharp." Every dog board I'm on has had more than one looooong thread about what sharp means.

To me, sharp is quick to bark, quick to react, sensitive to stimuli (as Duane says). To me, it's not really desirable, if defined the way I define it, because to me, it's really "oversensitive to stimuli."

So it's good to get a definition of the word from the O.P. so we know if "sharp" means "yahoo, eager and responsive" or "my dog came back from the kennel reactive and wasn't before."

Here's one discussion of three terms that are used a lot, and often with hugely disparate definitions in mind: hard, soft, and sharp.

For a discussion about any of the three to make sense, the people who are discussing probably need to all agree on a definition first. JMO!

QUOTE:

Question:

Can you explain the terms, sharp dog, hard dog and soft dog?

Answer:

This is a very, very common question that is asked by people buying dogs. Especially dogs that they want some form of personal protection from.

A "SHARP DOG" is a dog that is very quick to bark at someone. An example of this is a dog that hits the fence and acts like he wants to kill you when you walk by his kennel. I don't mean that every dog that barks at you when you walk by a kennel is sharp. The sharp ones are those that charge the fence, they probably get the hair up on their back and they probably are showing a lot of teeth in the form of a snarl. A sharp dog is not a tough dog. The fact is that sharp dogs have weak nerves and are usually not tough. In its worse form a fear biter would be called a sharp dog.

On the other hand a "HARD DOG" does not necessarily mean that a dog is a tough dog. A hard dog has a temperament that can take a correction and not act like you just killed him or hurt his feelings. A hard dog is often a good choice for a person who is big and gruff and not the best of dog trainers. A hard dog is a forgiving dog in terms of a bad trainer because a hard dog is not going to hold a grudge against a trainer that makes a mistake and gives inappropriate corrections.

On the same hand a hard dog can be a difficult dog to train because as adults these dogs need a level of correction that most people are not willing to give to make them mind.

A "SOFT DOG" is a dog that is sensitive to a correction. If a soft dog is corrected too hard it acts like you hurt its feeling. In some cases after a hard correction a really soft dog will lay down on the ground and quit working all together. Its like they give up.

Soft dogs need to be trained with this in mind. These dogs require motivation and very controlled corrections. .... END PARTIAL QUOTE from
http://leerburg.com/pupqa.htm#sharp


Edited by Connie Sutherland (06/11/2013 01:44 PM)
Edit reason: edit for "partial quote"

PS

I'm thinking that no matter where O.P.'s definition is along the "reactive" spectrum, what really matters is agreeing on one definition for the sake of the discussion.

Or at least finding out what the O.P. meant.

Wow! I never realized "sharp" meant so much

Just kidding! No I meant it the way Duane took it. I meant he was eager, quick engaged. And although we are very much beginners, he did very well.

I have seen that vid, Brian. I never expected to be that over zealous. BUT.... perhaps whatever we have been doing IS, in fact, too much for MY dog.

I guess what I am saying overtraining may have different thresholds for different dogs.

Also, I am retired and Ramsey and I are together a lot. Maybe he's tired of me?

MEN!!!!

Just for fun, I googled this:

What is a "sharp dog" ?

I used those quotes to keep the returns on topic. I included the question mark,

Boy, is there a rainbow of response, from the http://www.uspcak9.com/training/testdogsselection.html saying that "The sharp dog may at one time have been acceptable for work, this is no longer the case, however, given the nature of police work the sharp dog is now viewed as a liability," to definitions that to me went way too far (to me, were all the way to "fear-biter"), to "ideally sharp" ... and more!

I don't want to take the thread off topic .... just saying again that agreeing on a definition (sharp, dominant, hard, soft, and more) might be more important than anything else when a question comes up that relies on one of those buzzwords.

Connie~ I have read those articles too. Believe me, Ramsey is FAR from any kind of police work. He is a real pet dog!!