Reframing Maddie: the Fetch Machine (Part 2)

Maddie has been with me for ten days now, and one thing is crystal clear: She is a working Labrador — through and through. Give her a job, and she dives in like it’s the most important mission of her life. Her one job in life is to fetch. Outside, with a ball in sight, Maddie becomes a single-minded machine. Eyes locked. Body coiled. Muscles firing in sequence. She doesn’t tire. She doesn’t quit. She would go until she dropped if I let her.

Drive can become compulsion. Not joy, not engagement - just blind momentum. High-drive dogs like Maddie have brains that are wired for action in certain environments - the outdoors fetch.

The dopamine system — especially the reward anticipation pathway — is dialed up. These dogs experience intense satisfaction in the pursuit of a goal: the ball, the scent, the job. Most dogs love predictability but dogs like Maddie need structure, routine, and a meaningful outlet.

And without it? That drive gets misdirected. It becomes frustration. But when it’s channeled, it’s breathtaking. It’s like watching someone do exactly what they were born to do.

Inside the house, she’s different. Soft. Gentle. Unsure. A puddle of love who presses her body against mine and follows me from room to room. At night, she wants to be with her humans sleeping soundly at the foot of our bed. You’d never guess this was the same dog who, just hours earlier, was powering across the yard like a rocket.

It’s a dichotomy I’m still learning to navigate.

Outdoors, Maddie is confident. In motion, she knows who she is.

Indoors, she seems like she’s still trying to figure it out. She wants to trust, but she doesn’t always know where to find it. Living with the unpredictability for years, she still tries to figure out the good from the “bad” with the same person.

Yes she is a high drive pup but that is not all that she is.

In traditional training circles — especially in the hunting world Maddie’s drive wouldn’t be tempered. It would be stoked. Amplified to a fever pitch. Dogs like Maddie are pushed to work through intense arousal until they’re so overstimulated, they make mistakes which are often met with punishment — an e-collar correction, a shock, a leash jerk — meant to “fix” the behavior.

It’s a vicious cycle:

We wind the dog up until they lose clarity... Then we punish them for the very confusion we created. At first, the dog may keep working. But often, they don’t.

• They shut down.

• They stop offering behaviors.

• They stop trying.

This is what we call learned helplessness — when a dog gives up, not because they’ve learned what to do, but because they’ve learned nothing they do will stop the discomfort.

And I’ve seen it — too many times — especially in hunting dogs like Maddie.

Dogs who were once full of life and promise, reduced to quiet, mechanical obedience.

Not joy. Not understanding. Just compliance out of fear.

That is not the future I want for Maddie. That is not what she deserves.

My job is to help Maddie pause. To help her feel just as purposeful while resting as she does while sprinting. To show her that calm can also be a job — and that she can succeed at that, too. I don’t want to take her drive away. I just want to help her carry it more gently.

Throw it! I am ready!

Because she is so smart, The Premack Principle works like magic.

In simple terms, it means using a more probable behavior to reinforce a less probable one.

Maddie understands that:

• If she wants me to throw her the ball, she needs to either back away to give me space or sit.

• If she wants me to throw her a bumper in the pool, she needs to release the first bumper so I help her by having two bumpers. Dropping one, releasing the other.

It’s not about withholding what she loves. It’s about creating a sequence where self-regulation becomes the pathway to joy — not the thing that takes it away.

With Maddie, Premack has become our shared language. She’s learning that patience gets her the ball faster than trying to snatch it out of my hand. That settling earns her more fun than frustration.

And I’m learning, too — that drive doesn’t need to be extinguished. It needs to be understood, shaped, and celebrated for what it is: A kind of brilliance, waiting to be asked the right question.

I am teaching her this so that someone out there — maybe not a trainer, but a patient, active human with a big heart and a bit of guidance — can meet her where she is and see what I see: a dog who is eager to try and is waiting for the right person to give her what she needs. Going forward, I want her to experience the kind of training that says:

“You don’t have to lose your mind to be good.”

“You don’t have to be punished to be understood.”