"nerve" And "drive"

[aussielover]

Sorry, I keep reading these terms in various posts and am not 100% sure on what they mean.

Could someone please clarify for me or direct me to an appropriate thread. I tried doing a search but only came up with thing like "nerve sheath tumour" etc

[MonElite]

As a shortes possible description Id say that

Drive is the dogs persistant willingness to do something, how motivated is the dog.

Nerve is the dogs ability to deal with stress (such as new places, several istraction etc)

[Greytmate]

As a shortes possible description Id say that

Drive is the dogs persistant willingness to do something, how motivated is the dog.

Nerve is the dogs ability to deal with stress (such as new places, several istraction etc)

That is a pretty good brief description.

I would add that both qualities are controlled by the dogs' genetics. You cannot train a dog to have more or less drive, or more or less nerve. The challenge of training is to do the best with what you have.

[shortstep]

As a shortes possible description Id say that

Drive is the dogs persistant willingness to do something, how motivated is the dog.

Nerve is the dogs ability to deal with stress (such as new places, several istraction etc)

That is a pretty good brief description.

I would add that both qualities are controlled by the dogs' genetics. You cannot train a dog to have more or less drive, or more or less nerve. The challenge of training is to do the best with what you have.

JMHO I disagree with this.

I have seen many dogs that have great drive built in a birth, only to have it taken right out with negative/bad training practices or methods that do not take in to account the dogs over all temperament or motivations. It may come in the dog at birth, but you can knock the stuffing our of any dog, and maybe people do take their dogs down instead of building them up.

Nerves at least in a stock dog can also be taken out of a dog. Let a pup or young dog that is looking very confident get slammed by a bull or nasty ewe, that dog will not be as brave as it would have been if allowed to grow up first with out negative experiences. You can put fear into a stock dog and many people do just that.

Nurture has a lot to do with how dogs turn out in the end.

[Kavik]

Certainly by not promoting drive or by delierately training to decrease drive you can raise the dog's threshold for going into drive. And you can train to maximise the dog's drive and lower its threshold for going into drive. But there are limits as to how much it can be changed (certainly how far up), and this is determined by genetics.

A scare or negative experience can affect a dog's confidence. Often the dog's level of nerve will determine how quickly they recover (a measure of resiliance - how they bounce back) and along with future training how far they recover.