Men and dogs

This is kinda a repost from my other blog... A couple years ago I lost a Lab that had been given to me. He was a good dog. He had authority/dominance issues. He wanted to be the boss and was pretty hard headed about it. He was the only one owner Lab I had ever met. He would not roll over for a belly rub which is submissive behavior in a dog. Par for me I picked up a handful of books for guidance on training him. He was a pretty good gun dog. He would fetch a dead bird. He really didn't like picking the bird up in his mouth so he was very tender mouthed. But, he would go get it and bring it back. He would NOT chase a wounded bird. He informed me (Lab owners would understand this) more than once; If you can't kill it I'm not going to chase it. At least he never chased a spent shotgun shell. Something that all the training books stressed though is you don't punish a dog for desirable behavior. While this seems like a "duh!" point, I'll expand. When we were training he would get hot take his dummy and run to the creek that run near the house. He would get a big drink, and cool off. if I was too slow, he would be half way back to me before I caught up to him. I can't punish him. He brought the dummy back. The end result was desirable, the means getting there had issues. When training animals the animal needs to understand what it is that has been done wrong. Training humans really isn't any different. Except it's called bahavior modification. I call it training men to keep it from my perspective, but it goes both ways. "I wish he would be more romatic." What does that mean? If he tries to be more romatic by his definition and that falls short is he recognised for his attempt or punished for falling short? If the behavior is desirable but the methods don't quite get there then maybe expectations need to be made more clear. You don't punish desirable behavior or the behavior is apt to cease all together. Now Drake, I want you to fetch the ball straight back to me. No going to the creek this time. I'll take you to the creek when I have the ball. Tom