Female handlers ruining the breed -- my rebuttal. - Page 1

I know there's already a thread, but by the end it seemed a lot of petty bickering. How surprising, yes?

Anyhow, aside from generally being smaller and lighter, what difference is there between a female handler and a male? Men do have the upper hand when it comes to out-muscling dogs, granted. But as we said in Basic Training: "you can either be strong (through doing punitive push-ups), or you can be smart (by doing the right thing)."

When it comes to training and handling dogs, the same thing applies. If you're not stronger than the dog, be smarter. All dogs have something that motivates them. While, pound for pound, I am fairly strong, in terms of mass some of these dogs are in my own weight class. I look through the kennel, and think there is probably not a dog here I could really hold my own against if s/he decided to have it out with me. Bare-handed, I don't stand a chance.

Why is it then, that the male hands often ask me to wrangle dogs for them? Well, it can't be because I'm more physically powerful. And it's not like all the dogs are my personal animals. There must be something else... And here it is:

Confidience! Presence! and working WITH the dogs rather than against them.



I am not a click'n'cookie handler. I have strung up dogs. I am not afraid to use force, but I have found animals are more reliable when motivated to behave through reward than compulsion. I can choke a dog off a sleeve in training the aus. But I would like there to be some positive association with releasing, rather than simply the abatement of a negative condition. The same reason I dislike "forced retrieves" with my upland dogs. Male handlers have the advantage that they can be stronger than the dogs. Barring that, I think many female handlers have to settle for being smarter. I want the dog to release, do a blind retrieve, etc because it enjoys what it's doing; not because it feels compulsed to.

It is also worth noting that dogs motivated to perform will balk less on their handlers than dogs performing out of compulsion. People are like that too: if your boss only yells at ya when you fall short, but never offers any praise for going above and beyond, then soon you'll do the bare minimum needed to avoid getting yelled; but there's no reason to work any harder than that, because there's no benefit for extra effort.

Females do not make weak dogs look strong. Weak dogs are weak, strong dogs are strong. You can try and cover that with training, but at the end of the day the gender, skin colour, height or hair of the handler is irrelevant. <><> I am quite sure no one would be willing to say that at a club meeting, or make an announcement at the show saying females are ruining the breed. Not unless he wanted to be castrated before he made it to the parkinglot... Then the question we'd be asking on PDB would be "are eunuch handlers ruining the breed?"

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Female handlers weakening the breed?!? by susie on 18 March 2012 - 08:03	susie Post: 55 of 57 Joined: Thu Dec 23, 2004 05:33 pm
As a German I didn´t understand all of your posts, but why don´t you think about the words Jeff said instead of "killing" him? I´m a woman, involved in dogsport for more than 30 years - times, dogs, training methods, and handlers HAVE changed a lot during these decades . In former times there were as much as no women training dogs - today there are more women on the field than men . Most of these women ( I don´t say ALL ) train dos with "normal" drives, and they are very successful. Some of these dogs most of the male handlers ( again I don´t say ALL ) wouldn´t train because these dogs aren´t strong enough for them. These women are very good in training, they are very successful on trials, they breed these dogs... At the end people only see the result, not the dog and its training. There ARE a lot of dogs on the Bundessiegerprüfung with great results, a lot of men wouldn´t take as a "green dog " because they miss strongness or drive, but female handlers developed these dogs to do there best. These dogs become studdogs later on because of their success, but the dog didn´t change, it´s still a normal dog. As a result Jeff isn´t wrong, most female handlers don´t look for "strong" dogs, BUT some of them are very good trainers and handlers. They believe in there dog, they are more patient... Female handlers ( mostly ) look for drive, trainability, not for strongness. You don´t need a "strong" dog for 300 points, but the 300 points dogs will be bred because of their results. Times have changed, handlers have changed, dogs have changed, a normal development...and there are still good handlers and bad handlers, strong dogs and well trained dogs... But one thing is for sure: female handlers ( mostly ) are the better handlers...

Where are all the women handlers  ??

http://www.working-dog.eu/meistersch_anz_jahr.php?tID=114&tName=Championat+de+France+en+Grand+Prix

I could go on and on and on, but the idea that women are better than men, folds when you start actually doing the math.

Jeff

It's pretty simple. Most of the women handlers are on the Internet (hiding behind user names on the PDB)
While most of the Men handlers are at the Championships. What makes the female handlers at the big events stand out is their rarity :-)


Thomas Barriano

Hey, I just noticed that the library profession is 90% female. Does this mean that men can't read? I think this demonstrates that men are evolutionarily predisposed to not being able to read, because it's my experience and I found numbers. These threads are great - I'm sure I'm missing some great comments by only being able to read this on an iPhone. I'm going to go bake a cake and watch Vampire Diaries because my uterus told me too. ;-)

Most of the women handlers are on the Internet
 

Just like you Thomas ;)



- Louise Jollyman -
'It's Bode, he's famous!'

You see Thomas ? Point out reality, and they call you a girl...... not realizing what they have done. I wonder if they will start telling us that they are smarter than we are next. LOL

Call me old fashioned, but I like women.

I knew what I had done ;)

Louise

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Call me old fashioned, but I like women.

Only women really hate women.