How Dogs Learn

Linda Martuch — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:51:46 +0000

It’s difficult for us humans to understand what dogs think. We can’t actually get inside their heads to see what they comprehend. However our knowledge of brain structure and observations of how dogs learn leads us to believe there are things dogs can’t understand and other things they appear to be very good at.

One of the things they don’t understand is ‘concepts’. They can’t conceptualize because they have very small frontal lobes. The frontal lobes are the part of the brain that processes higher reasoning and concepts. Since they lack this part of the brain, we’re pretty sure they think in very specific terms and their abilities to draw some types of conclusions are limited. This assumption is supported by observations about how dogs learn.

What Dogs Know

Humans understand the ‘concept’ of ‘sit’. If someone asks us to sit, we can sit inside or outside, on a chair, a step, at a table or on a log, it’s all the same to us. They can ask us to sit, take a seat, rest a moment, take a load off or put our feet up and we understand all of that in the larger concept of ‘sit’.

Dogs don’t have the ability to take a concept like ‘sit’, and apply it to differing circumstances. We call this global thinking, humans can globalize, dogs are specific.

How To Train A Dog

If you trained your dog to ‘sit’ and only practiced in the house, you might be surprised to find that he didn’t seem to understand that command outside on the lawn. With the change in surroundings and/or circumstances, it’s a different situation to them. Most dogs won’t recognize the signals because those signals only apply to the situation in which they were taught. I say most because some dogs, like guide dogs, which are specifically bred for this ability, have some limited abilities to globalize.

Once your dog understands ‘sit’, you would need to teach another command to get him to jump up and sit in a chair. For dogs, sitting in a chair is different than sitting on the floor. And chairs are different too. An upholstered chair is different from a kitchen chair, to a dog it’s not the same thing. Dogs think in very specific terms.

Training Dogs With Consistency

Many highly trained dogs that compete in agility, or do police work, will only work for one trainer. They won’t work with any other person. Even with the same words, commands and requirements, it just doesn’t add up when someone else is giving the signals. It’s too different because dogs are so specific in their thinking, and perceptions. In their minds, commands come from their trainer, they don’t come from other people. They don’t understand those commands because they didn’t come from the correct source. The good news is that we can easily show dogs that their commands work in all situations simply by practicing in different locations.

How Dogs Think

The thinking that dogs do well, I call ‘connect the dots’. They’re experts at ‘what comes next’. Here’s some examples that I’m sure you’ll recognize. You pick up the car keys and the dog knows you’re leaving. The rattle of the car keys, predicts that you’ll be going out the door. If your dog likes the car and wants to go with you, he’ll run to the door because he’s hoping that ‘what comes next’, is he gets to tag along. You never taught the dogs that the keys mean you’re leaving, he observed it and put one and one together.

What Dogs Remember

Some more examples, the can opener predicts dinnertime. The leash predicts a walk, the doggie shampoo predicts a bath. In each of these cases, your dog has done simple addition 1 + 1 = 1.

One thing, plus one thing, equals one thing. The car keys alone don’t predict that you are leaving. It must be YOUR car keys. If a guest picks up her keys, your dog knows the difference. If someone who never takes the dog with them picks up the keys, your dog won’t respond. So it’s not the keys alone which triggers a response. It’s you and your keys together. Here’s some more equations:

Mommy + doggie shampoo = I’m getting a bath
Daddy + car keys = daddy is leaving the house
My dinner bowl + on the kitchen counter = I’m eating soon

Dogs are experts at this kind of addition, which is very specific thinking.

Doggie Math

Dogs pay attention to food and fun. They’re happy to perform to get the goodies. So we’ll use food and play to get them doing the math we want. Here’s our basic equation that we’ll be adapting to meet our needs:

Mommy (or Daddy) + “What” = Good things for me

All you have to do is show them the ‘what’. With training (experience) the equation can become anything you want, for example:

Mommy says ‘sit’ + my rear meets the floor = treats for me.
Daddy says ‘come’ + I go to Daddy = playtime for me.

All their thinking runs along these lines, their thought processes are that simple. They can add two things together to predict a result and they can do that extremely well. Dogs are expert problem solvers and solving this kind of math is what they do extremely well.

Dogs Need Specifics

The reason I told you about how specific dogs are is because you need to know that to a dog, ‘come’ and ‘come here’ are not the same. ‘Sit’ and ‘Sit Down’ and ‘Good Sit’ are not the same thing either. Dogs do very simple math, the following equation is too difficult for them to process:

Mommy says ‘sit’ and/or Mommy says ‘sit down’ and/or Mommy says ‘please sit down’ and/or Mommy says ‘Sau IT!’ + I sit down = treats.

Dogs can’t do that math. Eventually they might learn all the permutations of the ‘sit’ word separately without your realizing it. But this kind of training will take much longer than being specific and consistent. Using one word, every time, in exactly the same way will allow your puppy to be a star!

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