06/21/2024
Let's talk about a dog's ability of generalize a concept.
When you introduce a new behavior to a dog, the dog learns a cue "constellation" of sorts. You may think your verbal or physical cue is the relevant point to your dog, but dogs are more specific than that. They will wrap up the whole environment into their early understanding of the new behavior.
This is why, when you teach your dog to sit, say at home, in the kitchen, and then you go outside with the dog and it seems slower to respond or simply doesn't. Part of the cue is missing, ie the location in the kitchen. So, you get the dog sitting outside. Now take your dog to a park, with children playing nearby. Do you have to lower criteria again? Most probably. The new location and the presence of children aren't part of the original cue constellation. The dog can add them, but unless you train that sit cue extensively, in many different contexts, you can still expect to get failure to respond in new situations.
The dog is not being stubborn. He really doesn't know for sure. In dog training, we call this proofing. It means to help the dog generalize the concept of a cue.
"Oh," thinks our dog, after 1000 repetitions of sit in different contexts, "sit always means butt on the ground, anywhere, and even if mom's back is turned, or she is wearing a sombrero or there is a rabbit running between us."
And sit is a simple behavior! In obedience, you are taking complex behavior chains on the road. There's a lot of room for "known" behavior to break down.
So proof and proof creatively! Train for worst case scenarios! Ask your dog to prove she knows! Train everywhere. And don't hurry to trial. Set yourself up for success by building your dog's confidence in the task at hand.
I can easily think of a couple examples. Once, at a crowded indoor trial, the go-out went to a blank concrete wall. No ring gate. The failure rate was very high. Most dogs were thrown by the unfamiliar picture of the wall; they were used to seeing ring gates or stanchions or fencing. These dogs were well trained and "knew" the go-out behavior. The dogs adequately prepared to go out despite an unusual backdrop, had generalized the concept. The others needed more proofing.
Another: once at a trial, a dog was rushed and circled by a dog just after he was left on a down-stay for the group stays in Open(yes, a looong time ago 😅) That good boy stayed put and did not break! I'm quite sure the other dog had been taught to "stay", too. The difference? PROOFING. When that dog showed up in his face, the proofed dog thought "This is another one of Mom's tricks!! I know what to do. I wasn't born yesterday."
The other dog thought that "stay" meant stay at the training yard, or the club, or the backyard, or something. It did not mean stay when there were fascinating strange dogs around, at a strange place and Mom not around.
We will work on this in class as we progress, but you will always need to seek out training opportunities in a variety of places.
