Quote Originally Posted by EWO View Post
A number of years ago I saw a dog make several deeply game scratches back to a dog that clearly outclassed him. There were only two souls in that building that thought he still had a chance. The dog just knew he would win on the next trip over. And the other was an older gentleman who saw something down the road. I made the comment to get him up but I did not have the gumption to buy him mid-stream and force the pick up. That dog was brought back out and won two. I saw him on the second one and he was ten times the dog the second time I seen him. The differences were one he was done two pounds heavier and with a different owner. I believe he would have avenged his earlier loss if given the chance. With that said,

for the most part a dog is the product of his environment, sometimes that is a positive but sometimes he is a victim of his circumstance...to no fault of his own. One of the things I believe firmly is that if every dog, an absolute 100%, was held til they were 28-30 months old before even their first bump the percentages across the board would increase, regardless of line, regardless of owner. These dogs are amazing. They overcome so much and if they were allowed to fully mature they would overcome so much more (owners shortcomings).

The wisdom/willingness to wait on a dog is I think what separates the two in the original poll. The hard culler is not going to wait. The man that wants the best will wait. EWO

Another outstanding post. This is exactly what I prescribe in my chapters on Schooling and Game-Testing. I may well post these articles tomorrow, but you said exactly the gist of them: maturity and patience are everything.

A dogman expecting all his dogs to be 100% dead game before they're fully-mature is as clueless as a farmer expecting his crops to "taste their best" before they're fully-ripened. The time it takes to fully-mature must simply be understood and allowed-for.

What 90% of most dogmen don't realize is, dogs may achieve "sexual" maturity at 12-16 months ... but they do not achieve full, social maturity until they're 2.5 - 4 years old. That is a biological fact that will not be ignored by the intelligent dogman. This kind of deep understanding of dogs is what allowed dogs like Dibo and Chinaman to shine in their later years ... when they would have been culled by most of today's idiot-dogmen ... who would never realize what they lost due to impatience. The number of potentially-good dogs wasted due to not being allowed to mature is inconceivable.

Jack