Depends on the dog. I’ve trained two puppies this year.
The first one was stupid easy to train. Food motivated and could be refocused in every situation with food. Picked up commands quickly. Would do training basically any time of day.
Second dog just stares at me if she doesn’t want to be trained or feels the task is too hard. When she gets distracted, it doesn’t matter how high of a reward I give, she won’t take it if she doesn’t want it.
One trick that is popular in my family is to rest a treat on the tip of a dog's nose, tell them to wait, count silently for a few seconds, and then give them permission to eat it. (My sister's dog does it every day after his breakfast, and I recently had the pleasure of asking him to perform this trick for me when they visited. :)
Anyhow, my favorite of the dogs from my childhood was generally uninterested in what certain people wanted from her. She was more motivated by praise and the sheer joy of teamwork with her favorite people than by food.
So one day my mom (not one of this dog's favorites, through no fault of her own) sets her up to do the trick: she asks the dog to sit and places a treat on the dog's nose. The dog slowly decides she'd actually rather do something else. She tilts her head down towards the ground, the treat slides off her nose, and she leisurely walks away.
What has food motivation or desire to please have to do with intelligence? I view them as completely orthogonal. A dog can be an idiot and not be food motivated or have a desire to please and conversely a dog can be really smart and be food motivated and eager to please.
Eh, I had a Scottish terrier that was incredibly smart, learned every trick on practically the first attempt, then would just not do them again after mastery.
Independent, great explorer and hiker, hated clear objects like she had an intifada against them and never got into trouble or destroyed stuff.
She was a good dude and would have been less fun if she was more obsequious or eager to please and predictable.
I think both very adoring dogs and rather challenging or independent-minded dogs can be really precious in their own ways.
My mom had a boxer who was absolutely obsessed with her for his entire life. He was so eager to please her that she would often cue certain (benign) behaviors by accident, because he was always watching her to see if there was anything for him to do with her. He was so invested in figuring out what she wanted and in impressing her that the gentlest scolding would crush him— it could easily ruin a whole training session.
The things my mom (who is legally blind) got that dog to do were amazing. She (just a hobbyist) did dog sports with him (competitive obedience and rally) and got titles in advanced and intermediate levels. He did some 'American trick dog' stuff where he would do really gimmicky but pretty cute and impressive multi-step tricks, like going outside to fetch the mail and bring it back, or hopping into a suitcase, closing it on his own head, and lying down. He had some routine tricks that were pretty cool, like searching the house to collect all of his toys and put them away. He worked as a therapy dog in hospitals, where he was especially beloved by children, who were invariably amused and pleased that they could get a big, strange dog to do many tricks for them. He'd also do some little assistance things for my mom, like pick things up off the floor (if asked) so she didn't have to get down on her hands and knees and pat around to find them.
Unrelated to his training career, I'll never forget his watchfulness and sweetness toward my tiny old chihuahua. As you likely know, boxers can be extremely energetic dogs, but he was a calm soul as far as boxers go. While they didn't meet often, he had a special connection with my little < 5lbs Chihuahua: she trusted his gentle nature and he sympathized with her frustration with the antics of my mom's younger boxer. When the young energetic one wouldn't stop following my little one around, he'd trot in between them and quietly create some distance for her. My little old lady evidently appreciated this quite a bit, so much so that it once caused my family a scare. We always kept the big dogs and small dogs separated if the big dogs were playing, or if we were out of the house, or if no one was committed to supervising them. One day after an outing my mom panicked a little when she couldn't find my little old lady, and it turned out that she, not wanting to be alone for the long duration of a shopping trip and dinner, walked a couple steps down (at her age and size she was quite apprehensive about stairs, and typically would not cross even one or two steps) and then squeezed through the bars of a baby gate in order to nestle into a dog bed with my mom's dog. He was really an incredible dog, and his gentle, agreeable, social, other-oriented nature was certainly a big part of that.
On the other hand, that little old lady of a Chihuahua, when I met her, didn't know how to walk on a leash, resource guarded laps and bit about it, and didn't respond to my stupid attempts to scold her except by mistrusting me and avoiding me. Learning how to communicate her and win her over was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. By the end of her life she was a dog I could trust around strangers, dog and human, of all sizes and personalities, whom I could take offleash anywhere, who would wait for my signal at a crosswalk, who I could have lie down on some blankets on a table where I was eating and trust her when I walked out of the room, and whom I learned to read for the tiniest signals: eye contact, pointing at what she wanted with her eyes, inaudible growls/whines I could only feel because she was in my lap, the 10 kinds of trembling that comprise key terms in the Chihuahua language... and I probably wouldn't have learned much of anything from her if she hadn't demanded that I come to her and understand her perspective and needs and wants first.
Yes the idea that all dogs are equal and it’s just a mattering of training is a very harmful idea. People get soft about it though because they hit some cute/fuzzy dopamine thing in their brain and don’t take that reality seriously.
We have 2 french bulldogs. They're loosely related. one is smart as a whip. One is dumb as hell.
The former, I'm not sure they'd remember toy names from 10 years ago but I've been impressed time after time after time at her ability to understand the world around her.
THe latter, he's just lucky to remember how to walk down the hall.
A rule of thumb we were taught is half the food comes from training (not to the point of cruelty, adjust the training to be easier if needed so they get enough). You can adjust per dog, but many people treat training rewards as "treats" which are surplus to their needs, so greedy or food-loving dogs (I would be one, as is our first dog) will take it but others won't care.
High stress or emotional arousal or a distracting environment will supersede this but it's a decent starting point which people often miss. Luckily our second dog likes play and praise so that gives us more options.
We used that for dog #1. Works great to be able to dole out kibble for training.
Dog #2 just doesn't care. She eats the recommended daily amount, but will take hours to finish a meal. Walking away and coming back later. She just doesn't care about food.
Yeah they really do vary a lot. Something I did not appreciate until getting my first as an adult (as a child, I had no positive feelings towards dogs which I find sad now).
I have heard trainers who suggest meal time is meal time, the food is taken if it is not eaten, it's not a self-serve grazing buffet. I think part of it is about making it clear who is in charge, especially if a dog is not listening during training, but there are other reasons I forget like resource guarding and predictable toileting. But we all decide how much we let them express their personalities :)
The first one was stupid easy to train. Food motivated and could be refocused in every situation with food. Picked up commands quickly. Would do training basically any time of day.
Second dog just stares at me if she doesn’t want to be trained or feels the task is too hard. When she gets distracted, it doesn’t matter how high of a reward I give, she won’t take it if she doesn’t want it.