This is a video of a litter of pups out of Mess, the Viszla, by a fox red lab Dad called Tag. Mess is in the house having a relax while her pups play in the sun on the farm, Tag is a 100% absent father!
There are lots of things I could have done here, to prevent the pups from using their initiative and learning about not piling into or over things without thinking. I could have entirely prevented them from accessing the open door, or I could have built a barrier to stop them from looking over the edge at all. I could also be pushing them back from the edge with my hand as they approach it, which would have taught them the beginnings of pushing into hands, and therefore pulling on the lead, and also that people step in as they explore, which may be the first steps of frustrating human handling.
I could also have lifted each of them down the step as they approached it, ahead of their own confidence. This would have taken them beyond their own, earned zone of confidence and comfort they expand by exploring at their own pace (you can see a few of the pups aren't ready to venture further from the nest than the others), and begun to teach them that human handling precedes fearful situations, and reduces innately developed confidence.
By allowing them access to small edges that cannot physically hurt them, they learn so much completely on their own. They learn to think before they leap, to look carefully at what they are going to do next, to pause before they do anything, to be capably independent of people, and when they climb back up, which is difficult, they learn that perhaps staying in is currently a bit easier.
All of that learning begins to create a dog that as an adult won't run across massive gaps and break his legs, and who will pause before attempting jumps - a vital pause that allows their person mentor to say NO and prevent whatever might be about to happen if it's undesirable for human reasons (onto a railway line for example). The process begun above creates capable, thinking dogs that won't whine and moan about things, but will assess their own capabilities and decide independently if they are able to make and land a jump, or a gap, or into a car, or across a bridge, across rocks, or through holes.
Managing their own body through time and space is something we can take away from dogs accidentally by preventing experimentation, by trying to prevent accidents we think might possibly be about to happen and by stepping in too early.
This is difficult to teach adult dogs, but if the pups are raised carefully, with thought as above, we never need to teach it at all!
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