You watch a dog in training and see the obvious: jumps up on people, pulls on leash, doesn’t come when called. But what are you missing? What subtle traits, invisible to the untrained eye, actually determine whether your training approach will succeed or fail?
After decades of assessing dogs, I can tell you that the most critical information often lies in what we don’t immediately notice: the traits that shape how a dog experiences the world, processes information, and responds to interactions, and how those traits interact with each other.
The Patience Factor Nobody Sees
I learned this lesson years ago when asked to explain what I was looking for during puppy assessments at a guide dog school. I kept asking where they scored things like Patience—which I thought seemed essential for a service dog who’d need to wait while their handler fumbled for keys or got dressed.
The evaluators looked puzzled. “What do you mean by patience?”
That question launched the development of CARAT. Once I explained how I observed and thought about Patience, the next question was: “What else do you look for? Can you write all that down?”
So I did!
The Recovery Time Secret
Here’s another invisible factor: resilience, or how quickly a dog returns to baseline after arousal. You might notice that a dog gets excited or worried during training, but do you track how long it takes them to settle back down?
I’ve watched trainers struggle with dogs who seemed “difficult” when the real issue was slow recovery time. These dogs needed longer breaks between repetitions, gentler transitions, and modified session structure. Once we accommodated their recovery patterns, training flowed beautifully.
Meanwhile, dogs with quick recovery can handle more intensive training, faster pace changes, and higher repetition rates. They bounce back from mistakes or excitement almost immediately. Missing this difference leads to over-stimulating some dogs while under-challenging others.
The Modality Mix-Up
Most trainers focus heavily on visual communication—hand signals, body language, environmental setup. But what if your dog is primarily kinesthetic or auditory in their processing? What if visual input is actually their weakest channel?
I’ve seen brilliant dogs labeled as “slow learners” because training relied on their least effective sensory modality. Once we shifted to their stronger channels—perhaps kinesthetic engagement for a dog with high tactile sensitivity, or auditory cues for a dog with exceptional sound discrimination—learning accelerated dramatically.
The dog wasn’t slow. The communication was mismatched.
Reading the Whole Picture
Temperament traits don’t work in isolation—they interact in complex ways that create each dog’s unique learning profile. A dog with high arousal, slow recovery, low patience, and moderate biddability needs an entirely different training approach than one with low arousal, quick recovery, high patience, and high biddability.
Both dogs might learn the same behaviors eventually, but the path to success looks completely different for each individual.
The Assessment Revolution
This is why systematic temperament assessment matters so much. When you can identify the constellation of traits for that dog, you stop fighting against a dog’s nature and start working with it. Training becomes more efficient, more enjoyable, and more successful for everyone involved.
Once you learn to see what your eye has been missing, everything about training changes. You stop wondering why some methods work for some dogs but not others. You start designing approaches that fit the individual in front of you.
And that’s when real training success becomes not just possible, but predictable.
Ready to learn how to SEE the dog? Discover CARAT assessment training and join professionals and serious dog enthusiasts who understand that every behavior tells a story about the individual. New course opens on February 15th, 2026 and you can take advantage of the Early Bird Dog price of just $325 by registering before January 31st!
About Suzanne Clothier
Suzanne Clothier developed the CARAT (Clothier Animal Response Assessment Tool) in 2007 to help others see what she’s always seen: the unique individual within every dog. Through her Relationship Centered Training methodology, she helps professionals and dedicated dog enthusiasts learn to look beyond behavior to understand temperament.
