How to get your dog to respond to your cues in and out of the classroom

In my dog training practice, I often come across people who get angry and frustrated with their dogs because, from their point of view, the dog is “being stubborn” or “not listening.” But, usually, this isn’t because they’re being obstinant. It’s because there’s just an insufficient understanding of how dogs learn.More often than not, the problem is owners not realizing there is more to training than working with your dog in a the living room a few times. Or they come to class and then expect the same results at home. You can’t get a few good responses during one or two sessions and then expect the same response in every situation. It doesn’t work that way. 

There are basically four stages of learning:

• 1. “Acquisition” – the dog acquires the behavior
• 2. “Fluency” – the behavior becomes automatic
• 3. “Generalization” – the dog will do the behavior anywhere (this is what most people want)
• 4. “Maintenance” – use it or lose it  

Too often, people stop at the first step.  For example, once the dog learns to sit on cue in the house, no further steps are taken. People make the assumption that the dog knows “sit” and will always do so when asked. We also see this with cues given to get a good recall; the pup learns to come running happily to you in the house, but as soon as you go to the park amid other dogs or distractions, it falls apart.

If you want responses to be consistent, you cannot stop training at step one. Think of it in the context of learning to ride a bike:

• Acquisition: This is the stage where you learn to sit on the bike, balance, and co-ordinate the pedals and handlebars in order to move forward. You need to think of everything you are doing and your mom and dad give you lots of feedback and encouragement.
• Fluency: You can get on the bike without much thought, your feet find the pedals and you can propel yourself forward easily. Now you can pedal faster and faster and don’t have to think about what you are doing – it just happens.
• Generalization: You’ve ridden your bike on mountains, in valleys, on city roads, on grass, on asphalt, on gravel (carefully!) and through streams. No matter where you are, you can hop on a bike and begin to ride – the steps you take are the same.
• Maintenance: Here is where the new skill and all it entails becomes part of your skill set. If your friend says, “let’s go for a ride”, you know exactly what it means, be it in the woods or through the city. Although, if you haven’t performed the skill in a while, you may need a small refresher.

If you were teaching your child to ride a bike but he got frustrated and stopped at Acquisition (stage 1), you would not expect him to hop on a bike and go for a ride over bumpy terrain in the woods. He doesn’t have the skill set yet.

“Sit” while someone is doing jumping jacks is different than “sit” in an empty room. “Sit” in the park when other dogs are running around is even more advanced. I would not expect my puppy to do that in the early stage of training. Any change of location may mean having to reduce criteria and go back to an easier stage. In dolphin training, this is called “New Tank Syndrome.” When they move dolphins to a new tank, they often haveto reteach some steps of behaviors the dolphin learned when it was practicing in its original tank. Of course, the more times he is moved, the faster he’ll generalize and understand that swimming through a hoop results in getting a treat no matter which tank he’s in. We are subtly affected by this same principle: Studies suggest that people do better on tests if they’re given in the same room in which they learned the material.