Drive vs Desire

Disclaimer:
1. The following is a thought exercise, not an attempt to apply any definitive linguistic meaning to the terms being discussed.
2. All dogs are individuals. My comments are meant only to describe general tendencies I’ve personally observed among populations of German-bred dogs and French-bred dogs within the context of their native lands/breeding systems. Basically, I’m trying to describe what two different forests look like from 20 thousand feet, not what individual trees in them look like from 6 inches away. 

First, let’s start with how I like to think about the terms "drive" and "desire". For me, and for the purposes of this article:

• Drive = push

• Desire = pull

For example, when we are thirsty, we experience a drive to drink something. If we are thirsty enough, the drive becomes so powerful that it can push us to drink just about anything. But why do we sometimes drink when we are not thirsty? Desire. Think of a nice cold beer on a hot day, a warm cup of coffee on a cold day. If the beverage of choice is enticing enough, it can pull us into doing just about anything to get a sip. 

Lisa and Kolbi, a Braque du Bourbonnais

All well-bred gundogs, French or German, are hard-wired to seek contact with game. They are motivated by an inherited drive that pushes them to seek game and by an inherited desire that pulls them towards making contact with game. So what is the difference, in general, that I’ve observed among French and German dogs? 

The ratio of push to pull.

I’ve owned and trained French dogs and German dogs. I’ve hunted over French dogs in Canada, the US and France and I’ve hunted over German dogs in Canada, the US and Germany. All the French dogs and all the German dogs I’ve hunted over, no matter where, demonstrated ample amounts of both drive and desire. However, for French dogs, in general, there is more desire than drive (more pull than push). For German dogs, there is more drive than desire (more push than pull). 

The way I describe my German dogs is that they are, from day one, on a mission from the gods to find game. It’s as if they feel a gnawing, relentless pressure that can only be relieved by finding game, doing their job, fulfilling their mission. It’s as if they’re thirsty as hell and the only thing that can quench their thirst is game contact.  

The way I describe my French dogs is that they are, from day one, obsessed with getting another big swig from the bottle of that sweet, sweet nectar called game. They are like teenage girls at a mall, teenage boys at a strip club, moths to a flame. Their obsession doesn’t drive them, their desire pulls on them as if they were caught in a tractor beam.

So how did they get that way? Why the difference?

Selection pressure. 

My friend who breeds Weimaraners in Germany has bred one to two litters per year for nearly 30 years. Just about every dog she’s ever produced has gone to a hunter and all her own dogs started training when their eyes opened, and she continued to train them for years afterwards. Multiply that by a half dozen related breeds and hundreds of other breeders, over 100 years and you get a population of dogs that are hard-wired to accept, even want/need training early on, to follow orders, to fulfill the mission, starting day one. They are dogs hard-wired to be pushed. That is the German way. They breed dogs to fulfill a mission. They breed dogs so that hunters not only have good hunting companions, but so that hunters can follow the law that requires they have a dog for some kinds of hunting, trained to a certain level that the law demands. 

Braque d’Auvergne. Typically, very high desire dogs.

Yesterday, I spoke to a Braque d’Auvergne breeder in France. He’s bred one to two litters per year for nearly 30 years. All of his pups go to hunters but none of them start any formal training until they are almost a year old. Multiply that by several other breeds and by hundreds of other breeders, over 100 years and you get a population of dogs that are hard-wired to more or less train themselves by just following their noses. They are dogs hard-wired to be pulled. That is the French way. They breed dogs to satisfy the desires of hunters. They breed dogs for hunters that want good hunting companions that are also easy to live with and don’t require a years-long training program focussed on everything from pointing partridges to blood tracking bad guys. 

So when you are dealing with a German dog, you need to pay attention to the forces that are pushing it to do what it does. With a French dog, you need to pay attention to the forces that are pulling it to do what it does. 

My German dogs love, want, need to be trained. They need to be given a task to perform, they need to work for me. Doing so, quenches their thirst, relieves the gnawing pressure within them to fulfill their mission. It makes them happy. My French dogs love, want, need to just get out there and hunt, to share the adventure with me, to enjoy the hunt. Doing so, gets them another hit of that sweet, sweet nectar of game they crave. It makes them happy.

Another significant difference I’ve observed between my French and German dogs is how each should be handled.

Let's go back to drinking a nice cold beer as an example. On the one hand you have someone who is driven (pushed) by thirst to drink it and on the other, someone who is drawn (pulled) to drink it by desire. Now drop a fly in the beer. The person driven by thirst is far more likely to just pull the fly out and drink. The person pulled by the desire to drink is more likely to lose interest and simply pass on the offer to take a sip.

One of my Weimaraner's was so driven to hunt that it really didn't matter what challenge he had to overcome to find game. To him, not hunting was far worse than any hardship or pain he had to endure as long as he got to hunt. He was the proverbial anvil-headed dog that, once he was bound and determined to do something, wild horses couldn’t take him away.

One of my French dogs was the opposite. As long as she derived pleasure from what she was doing, she was all in, nothing could stop her. But the minute she associated anything negative with what she was doing, her desire to do it became less and less. Training her, I said, was like trying to play billiards with a rope!

16 year-old Weimaraner, Souris-Manon. Her eyes and ears and strength eventually faded. But her incredible drive to find game never did.

So, when I hear someone say, French dogs are soft, or that they will shut down if you put pressure on them, I say, ya, that is true for many of them. But it is not due to an increase in the pressure you are applying, it is due to a decrease in the appeal of what they desire. When you try to lean on a French dog, you are basically running the risk of dropping a dead fly into its nice cold beer.

When I hear someone say "German dogs are hard headed" I say, ya, a lot of them are. With all of my German dogs, you could lean on them all day, every day and they would just salute and say “Yes Boss, bring it on!” But the downside of that of course is when (not if) you needed to change their behaviour in some way (say, convincing them to not murder the neighbour's cats) you almost had to go nuclear on them, just to get their attention.

Of course, as mentioned, these are sweeping generalizations, used only to flesh out my thought exercise. In reality, most dogs, German or French, have a good balance of drive and desire. The real difference is the ratio of each and the overall tendency among larger populations of dogs to lean one way or the other. In general, if a German dog is going to lean any way, it will be towards being driven and strong-willed, if a French dog is going to lean any way, it will be towards softness and desire.

Ok, one more observation/hunch. Many French dogs are said to have an 'off switch'. In my experience, it is true. Could it be linked to my idea of desire vs. drive? Maybe.

To me, drive is like an itch. It’s a burning, gnawing sensation, and you just know you have to do something about it. So you scratch the itch to get relief. But like an itch, if you don’t scratch, it doesn't just go away on its own. It’s always there, in the background, gnawing away at you. 

Our Weims have always been high-drive dogs. Their off switches were, at best, so-so. Living with them, you could tell something was always kind of eating at them all day, every day. Sure, they would lay down and relax — with one eye open and on high alert for any sign of activity — but they lived their lives with a constant itch, a yearning for a mission to complete, because completing the mission was the only thing that scratched the itch for them.

In fact, for about a year before she died at the ripe old age of nearly 17, our female Weim, Souris-Manon began to suffer from what we suspect was some form of canine dementia. She slowly lost one mental capacity after another. The last to go was drive. In fact, it never left her. In her final days, she slept very little, and would wander around the house for hours on end in 'field search' mode. She’d slowly explore every inch of the house or yard, in a haze. Why? Because the itch was still there. Her built-in drive to hunt was still pushing her to seek game.

Desire on the other hand seems to be more of an on/off situation. It is greatest when the object of desire is present or anticipated, but nearly absent when it’s not. Give my current French dog (Leo the Picardy) any indication that we are going to the field and he is ON!!!! And when we get to our hunting grounds, drop the tail get and let him rip, he is on fire! But if there is no indication that anything hunting-related or any fun outdoor activity may be going on, he is basically comatose on the couch, or snoring at my feet. When the object of his desire is not present, he chills. When it is, he blasts off into orbit. 

So if you are a heavy-handed trainer, French dogs may seem to 'shut down' or be 'soft'. But if you are an easy-going trainer that understands that all you need to do is not shit in your dog's breakfast, then its easy. Take the dogs out, hunt ‘em and keep your yapper shut. You will have a great time.

The Amazing Maisey, a high-drive, high-desire Longhaired Weimaraner (German import)

Here's another analogy. Chips. You know, potato chips. Personally, I can drive by a chip warehouse in the capital city of chip-land and not even think about stopping to buy a pack. But if you put a bowl of chips in front of me, and I see and smell them, I will walk across molten lava to stuff my face. So I have zero chip drive. Nothing pushes me to seek them out. But if I I am in the presence of chips, my desire is off the charts.

What about you? What are your drives and desires? What motivates you to hunt? Is it drive or desire? What motivates you to have a dog, to train (or not to train) it and to hunt with it? Drive or desire? The answer is probably a mix of both, but the ratio is different for different people, just like it is with dogs.

So if you are looking for a new dog, keep this in mind: The best dog for you, is the one that puts a smile on your face. And you will have a better chance of getting a dog that makes you smile if you understand the difference between drive and desire and the ratio of those two things in you and your dog. If the ratios match, you and your dog will be happy campers. If they don’t, you and your dog may never really see eye to eye.

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