Training Tidbit of the Week: Realistic Expectations
Do you know that it usually takes thousands of repetitions for a dog to really learn a new behavior? This can be frustrating for us over achieving pet parents that expect our dog geniuses to pick up new behaviors almost immediately. It’s easy to forget that training involves a careful process of gradually adding distractions to help our dog generalize one behavior to multiple contexts. This would be easy if life were completely predictable! Since it’s not, expect training to fail from time-to-time. So take it easy on yourself and your dog. If he “doesn’t listen”, he may not have learned what you are asking. If he suddenly stops “obeying”, look at the context and ask yourself what might be preventing the behavior. Often it’s fear, stress, and/or anxiety about the situation or something in the environment; NOT stubbornness, spite, or dominance. So now that you know this tidbit, enjoy your dog and help him when he gets confused. You’ll both be happy you did! ;)
Happy training!
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