Understanding ‘Nerve’ in high drive dogs

Did you know that the difference between a reactive pet dog, a strong herding dog, and a confident protection dog often comes down to the same hidden factor — nerve?”

High-drive dogs are often praised for speed, energy, and intensity. But those qualities alone do not determine whether a dog can succeed under pressure. Another quality — nerve — can make or break your dog’s ability to excel in sport, or in life. .

In working-dog language, “nerve” refers to stability under stress. A dog with strong nerve can stay clear-headed when challenged. A dog with weak nerve may appear powerful until pressure mounts, at which point confidence collapses.

Helmut Raiser, in Der Schutzhund, emphasizes that “drive without hardness is nothing.” Power and clarity come not from raw energy, but from a dog’s ability to stay engaged and functional under stress. In protection training, we do not build strength by overwhelming the dog. We build it through little wins — brief exposures, correct choices, and small successes that add up to resilience.

The same pattern appears in stock work. A young dog may grip out of nerve when stock fight back. Over time, with support and opportunities to experience success — holding pressure for a moment, moving stock off calmly, recovering after an error — the dog gains confidence. Each win builds nerve to match drive.

Research on coping styles in animals (Koolhaas et al., 1999; Forkman et al., 2007) reinforces this. Animals exposed to manageable stressors, followed by successful resolution, develop more effective coping strategies. Dogs trained in this way learn to stay functional under pressure rather than defaulting to avoidance or frantic overreaction.

This principle applies just as much to worried pet dogs as to stock dogs or Schutzhund competitors. A dog that barks and lunges at strangers is often experiencing pressure beyond its coping capacity. If the handler responds only with restraint or suppression, the dog learns nothing about managing stress. But if the situation is scaled back, and the dog is given room to succeed — for example, holding attention on the handler as the trigger passes at a distance — each success builds nerve.

Avoiding triggers, staying too far from things that cause your dog stress can be just as unhelpful as the dog that is faced with too much too soon. The art of dog training is knowing where to push our dogs and when to let them de-escalate. A good decoy is constantly in motion, pushing, retreating, testing and rewarding. Building my stock dogs I do the same dance. A worried pet dog needs confidence just to cope with life: strange noises, dogs, people, etc… and training these dogs is a dance of exposure and reward, pressure and release.

Drive brings the desire to act. Nerve ensures the dog can act effectively when challenged. For both working and pet dogs, the path forward is the same: structure experiences so the dog has the chance to win. Each small win strengthens nerve, and over time, resilience becomes habit.