Customs here often use Labrador dog to sniff
baggage. This is a surprise really. They aren't that good at
sniffing. Beagles have vastly better noses. But they do like sniffing
and they will do it for food. In dog training circles Labs are known
as biddable They will do most things for food.
Sort of like employees really.
Except they want money.
OK. Some of you may sense
that this isn't the whole story. Sure people do work for money and
Labs will do all that obedience training stuff for a few doggies
biscuits. Its just that sometimes the and
… is forgotten.
"Labs are biddable"
Says it all, doesn't it?
No. That's the story and then there are
all the untold stories.
Here is a little story. It's about
Gypsy. Compared to Holly, she is very biddable. She watches food like
a hawk that hasn't be fed in what feels like forever.
OK so this day Tricia and I go down to
the break water. The tide is right in and we have to clamber
carefully along the rocks to find a ledge to sit and have coffee and
croissants. An Gypsy watches. She watches every mouthful. Tricia
throws a piece of croissant into the water and Gypsy stares at it but
she doesn't jump. She is fond of the water. Not as fond of the water
as Holly, the blind dog was but never the less fond of water. She
returns to watching us eat mouthful after mouthful. She watches us
drink our coffee. Then she disappears and goes to play. Curiously it
doesn't really matter whether we have food or not. There is this time
before she goes off to play. She looks under rocks, clambers over
rocks. She runs through the shallow water. She plunges into the water
and swims out to submerged rocks and clamber out onto them. She surfs
in between rocks. She attempts to follow a family up castle rock.
Every so often she checks into see if we have moved. Eventually she
comes back to where Tricia and I are discussing motivation in the
work place. It's a day off and I'd rather be relaxing but Tricia is
puzzling over how people become motivated in the work place. In the
end I ask her to throw Gypsy some croissant. She does. And Gypsy
doesn't.
Doesn't jump in and swim to the
croissant that is. It seems so easy as we look down from our view
point. All she has to do is jump in. The croissant is only a few feet
away.
OK it isn't going to happen. Then Gypsy
climbs down the back of the rock and slides into the water and swims
away from the croissant. Around the rock she goes then she does a U
turn and goes straight for the tasty morsel like a homing
torpedo.
"Oh" says Tricia. "External motivation
may determine the eventual outcome but you can't predetermine how
people are going to be motivated."
"They have to find their own
way."
I think she's right.
And what we had forgotten when we said
"Labs are biddable" is that they are highly intrinsically motivated
by curiosity, senses of adventure, feelings of canine achievement.
Just as we are.
So when it is said with an air of
finality that A = B
Ask, "And what else?"