I was actually surprised that it was a golden, because in experiences with British Pathe, I’ve found dogs listed as goldens in the description that are actually Clumber spaniels or English setters.

Puppies weren’t up to the concentration of that kind of rigor. Heck - it’s arguable whether ADULTS were up to the concentration of that kind of rigor. But that’s the way training classes used to be run and hence the “6 month” rule.

When that was the rule — and indeed it was — puppies were taught to behave as a matter of course, generally by a stay-at-home Mom. This wasn’t training. It was bringing up the puppy. Just like saying please and thank you and may I be excused was something every four-year-old was expected to have mastered. It wasn’t education, it was bringing up your child. The puppy and the child both entered formal education (at six years or six months) having done plenty of playing, but also having been civilized enough to be educable.

I think it was mostly the failure of puppy-bringing-up that accompanied cultural changes around childrearing and family life that made it necessary for professionals to invent puppy kindergarten. And it is absolutely necessary for most modern lifestyles that include a puppy dog.

But as our own lifestyle has gone back in time — our first puppy was raised in a Boston apartment, second in a close-in older suburb of Pittsburgh, third through fifth in a sprawlburb with farmland at the end of the road, and number six moved to the farm as a young teen — I see us becoming much less structured about the puppy-raising.

The first thing I did when I got my last foster, a young pup, was stop training him. He’d been overstimulated by too much clicker-training and too many NILIF protocols; it made him nervous and anxious and pushy. Just the wrong things for this particular puppy. I let him be a little wild Indian on the farm, correcting the wrong and permitting the right, had the adult dogs teach him the ropes, took him out to socialize him, and didn’t sweat it for several months. And he did great.

They’re so well-trained — they do as their told!

Something that should be engraved backwards on the forehead of every method-bound wannabe trainer nowadays.

The shepherds were working very happily.

I’ve often been told I’m delusional when I mention that back in the 70’s, extreme precision of heeling was not the Great White Whale it is nowadays, and that in the ring dogs were judged on “obedience” rather than precision — which for one, made it more about the training and less about the way the dog moved, so that a well-trained Newfoundland would post respectable scores even though he didn’t snap to it like a Sheltie. I have been accused of making this up. Well, no proof about the 70’s, but that heeling in the film looked mighty familiar

Wanna know how to keep your agility dog from knocking over jumps? Wall of fire!

That golden shocked me. I had no idea that the big light-yellow dogs even existed back then. So they really did all come from England! But he seems a pleasant fellow.

A shepherd mix.

And who knew the secret was jodhpurs?