In "The Complete Scottish Terrier," John T. Marvin writes "The Scottie... is a canny individual that never reacts without reflection and consideration of the consequences. Once the decision is made, however, he enters the melee with authority and abandon." I call this "running a cost/benefit analysis of each situation" and it has certainly been my experience with Wager. It can be a challenge, but it is also a benefit to many areas of training.
The biggest challenge right now is in Junior earthdog. Wager goes straight down the hold, getting to the rats in time. Then he assesses the scene. And considers possible action points. And reconsiders. For several minutes. Then he gets comfortable and watches the rats.
The benefit to Scottie temperament, to having a dog that thinks through every scenario, is once the decision is reached, it is Written In Stone. This makes training very easy if you take it at the dog's pace. If you rush anything, the dog may quit. But if you give the dog time to process that detailed cost/benefit analysis, he will perform beautifully and quickly.
A good example of this is training Wager to run the agility teeter. It took about 18 months to get the performance I was looking for, shaping each step and very gradually raising my criteria. I wondered if he would ever really Get It. Then one day, he ran across a full-height teeter, crashing it to the floor. No problem! It's one of his favorite obstacles now, because we took so much time and he earned so much reinforcement for interacting with it.
Having opinions written in stone seems to be a recurring theme in Scottie temperaments, and it is one of the traits that I adore about Wager.
Here's a short video of Wager demonstrating the "Slam It" cue. At this point, he had been clicked for putting his feet on a target, then I moved the target to the shed door for a few more clicks. This is the next step, with no target. This was a total of about 5 minutes of training.
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