A Phrase Without a Definition
Ask ten kennels what ‘fully trained’ means and you will get ten answers. Some describe a dog that has completed a basic obedience and bite-work program. Others describe an animal that can perform reliably in novel environments, under stress, with a handler it has just met.
These are not the same animal. They are not even close.
The Vocabulary That Matters
Useful language has to be able to be wrong. A term that covers everything from a green dog to a finished one is not a specification — it is a sales tool. The buyer cannot make an informed decision inside a vocabulary that refuses to distinguish.
Look instead for language that is falsifiable: a stated number of hours, a named set of exercises, a defined environment, a documented handler standard. If a claim cannot be checked, it is not a standard.
“If a phrase can mean anything, it means nothing. The industry needs words that can fail.”
Questions That Cut Through
Replace ‘is it fully trained?’ with: what specific behaviors, in what specific contexts, evaluated by what specific criteria? The answers — or the inability to give them — tell you everything you need to know about the seller’s relationship to their own product.
