Don't Go Straight to the End Goal

When teaching your dog something new, concentrate on teaching the skill first before trying to apply it. Don’t go straight to the end goal. You’ll just be setting your dog up to fail.

When my son got his learner’s permit, I didn’t just run him through a quick overview of how to drive and then hand him the car keys and say “off you go then, don’t get into any trouble.”

No. There is a whole regulated process designed to make sure he is successful at learning the necessary skills. He had to log 75 hours of driving time, some of which had to be in different environments (day time, night time, country roads) and with different levels of distraction and difficulty (quiet times, busy times, in school zones, major intersections, in the rain).

Between his driving instructor and me, we started simply and worked up. Firstly, in a quiet and empty car park, learning the absolute basics. Then in some quiet streets. Then in busier streets, busier times of day, at night time, working on all the skills in different environments, only moving on to increased levels of distraction and difficulty as he gained the required skills. If he had struggled at any stage, we would simply have gone back a step to where he was last successful and worked up.

While dog training isn’t regulated in the same way driving is, we should always apply the same approach with our dogs when training a new skill. On introduction of a new skill, dog owners are naturally already thinking about how to apply it. Wouldn’t it be great if our dog would go to his bed and stay there when the door bell rings? However, too often we can’t help ourselves and rush to try it out as soon as we see some progress in learning. This instantly sets a dog up to fail, which is not fair on him at all.

You need to teach a sound and reliable down stay or place command before seeing if you can get your dog not to move when the doorbell rings or in the middle of the dog park with 20 dogs running around. Or expecting your dog to recall off chasing a rabbit when they currently can only recall sometimes with no other animals or distractions around.

So, whether it’s a bomb proof down stay or a rock solid recall you need, don’t even think about trying it out on your end goal until you have taught the basic skill to a really high level, in different environments and varying levels of distraction, and you know your dog understands the command and what is expected of him when you give it. It takes hundreds of repetitions at each stage, building on duration, distance and distraction before a skill is really solid.

Set your dog up for success by taking the time to set sound foundations first.

Happy training!

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Jacqui Triggs, Trainer

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