Goose…I do the same with pups…I look for those that figure things out…looking for things the pups do without needing any training to do these things…also looking for natural winding nose…and those that find more hidden treats in the back yard…I then visualize my pups working in the woods even though my backyard is way way smaller…
Since we’re way off topic…
New Year’s Eve night I was concerned about my 9 week old pups, with all the noise with the fireworks that will be cracking the still of night and possibly traumatizing them…
I already know a few things about the pups…the pup that hunts the best does not like out of the routine loud noises…at the first firework pops she bolted to the shed and crawled under and stayed a good while…the second pup, it was minutes later with quite a few fireworks popping before she joined her sister…a while later their brother joined them…
The 4th pup…the noise didn’t faze him…
The only one that concerns me is the first one even though she hunts the hardest…i will see at a future date if her being over sensitive to new and loud noises will be a problem…she’s not out any time soon because she is not shy…just over cautious…
Cautiousness or high awareness can go hand in hand, lets you know she's paying attention to the world around her, but on a bad note if the fear keeps up it may be early signs of mental instability and can't handle out of routine occurrences, only time will tell and she's in the right hands to have the problem fixed if there is one, one of those problem solvers I kept was my Lucy gyp, New Year's Eve my son and his cousins were setting some cannons off and rattling the neighbors Windows two miles down the road, she's was just as lively and bouncing around on her chain like it was nothing, never had the chance to see her reaction to that type of stimulus, she's was also one of the first ones to make me start watching hard how the pups handled themselves around the house, was barely 6 weeks old and I came inside one day and she's on my couch, thinking my son brought her in I put her back out, I took a nap and about 30 minutes later I'm being licked in the face by this little pup, nobody but me there to let her in, so I put her back out and within a few minutes she's right back inside, she learned herself how to get the dog door open on my back door and make herself at home, and had figured away to climb up on a footstool, get on my recliner, walk over my blanket bin and onto the couch, this was her first day ever up at the house, and within an hour she had done this while the rest were running around whining and sniffing everywhere, I kept her just bc of that, to some that may be something stupid to consider but it showed me she had enough brains and mental to figure things out on her own, heck some of my grown dogs that were just yard ornaments and alarms for petty neighbors never figured the dog door out unless it was left open....