06/13/2025
ā ļø WARNING: Controversial Topic Ahead ā ļø
Read at your own risk. Side effects may include: self-reflection, defensive huffing, orādare I say itāgrowth.
This post is born out of watching far too many people perched on molehills, shouting from their respective camps.
Border Collie die-hards versus the anti-Border Collie brigade.
Working dog purists versus sport crossover skeptics.
āHard dogā people who assume youāre unworthy if your pupās not biddable by 4 months.
People who pick apart other breeds, styles, or disciplines while conveniently ignoring the three fingers pointing back at them.
Hereās a thought:
What if we all spent a little less time pointing fingers outward, and a lot more time working inwardāon ourselves, our mindset, and our commitment to our dogs?
Because the way I see it, this whole āinstinct and geneticsā debate?
Itās often a convenient excuse.
A cushy little scapegoat we throw blame at when the training gets hard.
Spoiler alert: hard dogs make good trainers. And hard seasons make deep humans.
Life, like training, is made up of peaks and valleys. And itās in the valleys that we dig rootsāwhere we grow soul and substance. The same goes for the dogs we train. The ones that donāt come easy are often the ones that build us into the kind of people who can handle anything.
And lookāIām not discounting the importance of instinct.
Of course working instinct matters. Ranchers donāt have time to coax out potential over years. They need a dog that turns on young and turns out quick. They need above-average instinct (quotation marks very much intended). They donāt have the luxury of training every slow burner or off-type pup. Totally fair.
But thatās a matter of priority, not possibility.
Just because someone else doesnāt have time to develop that dog, doesnāt mean it canāt be done.
Iāve watched ānon-workingā breeds show up with their dedicated owners and completely shatter expectations. Dogs with zero herding pedigree, zero natural instinct, but a hell of a lot of try. And more importantlyāa human who decided not to quit when the going got weird.
And letās be honest about something else while weāre here:
You better be creative and mercurial if you want to be a good trainer.
It takes flexibility, adaptability, curiosity. You have to get weird with it sometimes. Cookie-cutter wonāt cut itāespecially with dogs that donāt read the damn manual.
So if youāre gonna commit to a dogāactually commit.
Be honest about why you chose that dog. Was it the color? The look? The vibe?
Cool. Youāre allowed to be human. If it makes you happy, great. But donāt turn around and blame the dog when the training gets hard. Thatās not on the dogāthatās on us.
And while weāre being honestācan we talk about joy for a second?
We are allowed to like what we like.
Some people want a fire-breathing dragon dog that can eat up a field. Others want a soulful partner that checks in every 30 seconds. Some folks love a rugged Aussie with a jaw like a clamp, others melt over a dainty sport-bred Border Collie with drive for days.
And guess what? None of those preferences are wrong.
It doesnāt make one dog better or worseāit just means that kind of dog brings that kind of person joy. And joy matters. The dog that lights you up is the dog that youāll show up for.
It is such a human thing to want to define ourselves by what we loveāand then throw shade at everything that doesnāt fit our label. But dogs donāt need your labels. And honestly? Neither do we.
Letās stop judging each otherās choices. Letās stop sneering at people who run different breeds, use different methods, or enjoy different styles.
Letās celebrate diversity instead of defining ourselves by division.
Because hereās the deeper truth no one wants to admit:
Dogs are not brokenātheyāre just trying to survive in a human world that doesnāt always make sense.
Itās our job to help them navigate it.
And you know what?
This parallels beautifully with people.
It would be easy to categorize humans as āfrom bad stock.ā To slap on labels like aggressive, anxious, reactive. But Iāve watched humans rise from hellish placesāhomes with addiction, cycles of trauma, legacies of violenceāand become the kindest, most powerful, self-aware individuals Iāve ever met. Not because of their āgenetics,ā but because someone believed in them. Someone saw their worth and walked the road with them.
Your dog deserves the same shot.
So letās stop fixating on the breeding chart as the holy grail.
Letās stop assuming that only certain people can raise certain dogs.
Letās stop judging someoneās training capacity based solely on our own bias or limitations.
Instead, letās get better. Letās train smarter, live fuller, and stay humble enough to admit that sometimes weāre the ones holding the dog backānot the other way around.
Instinct matters.
Genetics matter.
But they are not the whole damn story.
The rest? Thatās on you.
As for the the dog in the pictureā¦ hereās the dog that āmadeā me. The one that had me scratching my head and showing up even when it got tough. Blew the lid off of what I believe was possible and became one of my greatest teachers and best friend.
ļæ¼
In Loving memory of: Kallie aka. Killer
