Quote Originally Posted by AL Clown
It really bothers me when I hear people say, "Oh I'm going to start him up today". There is no animal that comes with a starter, my feelings are people should learn to pay better attention to their animals and they would notice he/she has some interested. Given their are some hot pups, but they are just that pups and are by no means ready to hunt.
On the other hand, a animal that shows interest usually has reach some level of maturity and is better suited to handle the task asked of them. Understanding the animal and recognizing that level of maturity falls solely on the owner.
If your out their judging and/or forcing pups/unmature animals to play please stop it. Your only potentially wasting a good animal.
Very thoughtful post.

I will say that some dogs are naturally friendly, and will never show aggression unless attacked first, so there are some cases where you'll need to bump them in order to "elicit an aggressive response" ... however, this is a far cry from leaving an unstarted dog "down," that WON'T crank, when it is clear that he is not up for the task.

Further, just because a dog is coming of age where he'll "start on his own" doesn't mean he's ready for the whole drill yet. In other words, taking your 13 year old boy to spar with on old vet for 3 rounds, when he shows interest, so that you can acclimate him to boxing is one thing ... but putting him in there with a world-rated fighter, and forcing him to take that kind of a whipping for the whole distance, is quite another ...

One is a thoughtful introduction while the other is stupidity to the extreme ...

Jack

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