The Accidental Trainer

You can train your dog to do almost anything by luring and treating, but you need to practice often. That’s because your puppy is sitting by accident, and he doesn’t understand yet it’s the sit you want. He didn’t make a decision to sit, so how would he know? It’ll take a little time for him to fully realize the sit is want you really want, and the more you practice the quicker he’ll learn because he’ll have more opportunities to connect the sit with the treat.

Competing Inputs

Dogs can’t think about some things because they lack frontal lobes, but the trade off is they perceive an amazing amount of detail, at all times. Dogs include this ‘situational detail’ in their learning processes. We don’t know for sure everything they’re taking in, but your dog is noticing all kinds of extraneous sights, sounds, and smells when you’re training your dog. To help your puppy focus on what you want, good timing is critical.

It’s All In The Timing

If your puppy receives his treat at the exact instant his tushy touches the ground, he’ll be better able to connect the two events. The longer the delay between the sit and his reward, the longer it will take your puppy to learn the two are connected. If you wait even a few seconds to reward your puppy his attention will wander to something else. He’ll eventually get it, but the better your timing, the faster your dog will learn what you want.

I Think I’m Getting It

Over time, you’ll be able to stop luring your puppy into position. He’ll begin to recognize the sit word and sit before you get the treat over his head. If he stops, or hesitates, lure him all the way into his sit, then give him the treat. Don’t accept a half sit, or that’s what he’ll offer you forever. If he gets ahead of you and sits before you finish luring, give him the treat immediately. Always deliver the treat when he sits, not before and not after.

You need to go through the motions of luring for as long as it takes for your puppy to automatically respond to your dog hand signal or verbal command. If he appears to forget or be confused, help him out.

Learning Roller Coaster

We’re trying to set your puppy up for success, so you should do whatever it takes to make him successful. Learning for dogs, and especially puppies, isn’t a straightforward process. They will occasionally forget what they learned. Just give him whatever he needs to remind him what he’s supposed to do when he gets ‘stuck’.

A Whole Different World

After you teach your puppy to sit in class, you’ll also need to teach him at home. Your puppy learned to ‘sit’ in class, and he understood it there, but only in that context. But it’s a whole different ballgame at home or out on the street. He needs to be shown that sit means sit everywhere. You should train him in the house, in the yard, on the sidewalk, and at grandma’s house. The more places you go together and practice your skills the better he’ll remember them.

Easy as 1 – 2 – 3

Now you know why timing and repetition are the keys to your puppy training success. If you’ve read my article on “Vision The Dog Language” you have all three ingredients you need. And you can follow these three easy steps to success:

1. Lure your puppy into position
2. Use hand signals
3. Treat and repeat in various locations

Links to Puppy Class 101 articles:

• Welcome to Puppy Class
• Puppy Brain
• Vision The Dog Language
• Who’s the Big Dog?
• Doggie Sheriff
• Watching Your Every Move
• Doggie Math 1+1=1
• Time Out For Puppies

Links to Helpful General Knowledge Articles:

• Dog Talk
• Play Time For Dogs
• Training Rules
• Dog Toys Are For Training

What Comes Next

Fortunately for us, dogs are experts at ‘predictors’, which is trainer speak for connecting the dots or figuring out ‘what comes next’. So when we say “Sit” and the puppy sits, it’s because he’s learned that when he hears that sound and he sits, he gets a cookie. It wouldn’t matter if you said scratch or sniff instead of sit, if you pared those words with a sit and a cookie, he’d sit. But he doesn’t understand language, so you have to teach him specific words.

Don’t Be Deceived

Your dog may love the sound of your voice, but don’t confuse interest with communication. Explaining things in words won’t get the message through. But because they seem to understand our words, and we’re so dedicated to language, it can be hard to understand what really happens when we try to communicate with our dogs. I’ll make up a story to illustrate how dogs trick us into thinking they’re know what we’re saying.

Keep Your Eyes On The Prize

Let’s say, for example, that a student and her puppy are learning the sit command. The puppy has been lured into the sit position 5 or 6 times and has made the connection between sitting and getting a treat. The student says “Sit” and the puppy responds and receives the treat. It seems obvious that the puppy has very quickly understood both the concept of “sit” and the word his Mommy used to ask for the behavior. That’s pretty good for a creature that’s been on the planet for a few short weeks, eh?

Not So Fast

After class, our intrepid team goes home to show off their new skill, “sit” says his mommy and the puppy jumps up for the treat. They try again and the puppy leaps for joy. ‘What’s wrong with my puppy?,” the student is now wondering. He’s already forgotten his lesson! He understood it an hour ago, what happened?

What Really Happens

The puppy had been watching his mommy and the treat and he wasn’t listening to the words she’d said. His mommy stood and held the treat in exactly the same way each time they’d practiced. He’d noticed her movement and body position, but his mommy thought he was listening.

At home, he’s in a different place and mommy is holding the treat differently so he doesn’t recognize the signals. At class he’d tricked his mommy into thinking he understood her words, but he earned his treats by watching her movements. Now that’s dog smarts!

The Biggest Hurdle

We don’t have to train silently, but it’s easy to talk too much. Ideally the only words we would speak while training would be our dog commands, or better yet we’d use dog hand signals.

You may have noticed that while I’m talking to class I use hand signals to communicate with my dogs. I use hand signals because they offer my dogs a clear sign they can read without sorting through the mountain of words they don’t recognize and because hand signals are a language they innately understand.

Vision, The Dog Language

Dogs do learn to respond to words, with time and repetition. But the fastest way to teach your dog is with visual clues because his brain has the ability to recognize and remember them. Vision is the language of dogs, and offering a visual signal with your verbal command will help him to learn faster and remember better.

Links to Puppy Class 101 Articles:

• Welcome to Puppy Class
• Puppy Brain
• Easy as 1, 2, 3
• Who’s the Big Dog?
• Doggie Sheriff
• Watching Your Every Move
• Doggie Math 1+1=1
• Time Out For Puppies

Links to Helpful General Knowledge Articles:

• Dog Talk
• Play Time For Dogs
• Training Rules
• Dog Toys Are For Training