Turning the Training Page: How to Understand Your Dog's Learning Pace

Complex behaviors often have to be taught in steps. photo: AdobeStock

Did you ever notice how your dog learns some behaviors super fast and others not so much? Or that they sometimes seem to learn unwanted behaviors much faster than the ones we want and need them to learn?

The pace at which your dog is actually learning a desired skill is important to understand as you train and that awareness is one of the skills that good dog trainers have.

When we teach our dogs tricks or attempt to modify their behaviors, we are working on skills that are either a simple one-step command or a complex chain of actions. Complex behaviors often have to be taught in steps. The dog needs to understand one part before you add the next. When to move your dog's lesson to the next step is what I call “turning the page.”

Turning the page at the right time - or not - can make or break our dog’s  comprehension of any skill we want them to master. Go too fast and you'll have gaps in the learning that will cause failure to perform in certain circumstances. Go too slowly and you’ll bore the poor dog, causing your dog’s mind (and possibly the body) to wander. Dogs with boring teachers end up learning about as well as anyone else in that predicament. Imagine having a book read to you by someone who is not turning the page at the right time.

I have the pleasure of working with a variety of people and dogs so I get to learn a lot about learning rates every day. My students’ goals range from having a well-mannered citizen at the end of the leash to wanting a national championship in dog agility. It is my job to teach each owner how to know when it’s the right time to turn the page as they teach their dogs. This timing can be one of the trickiest things to establish as most people start off thinking their dog is actually more capable or less capable than the dog actually is.  This, of course, affects how fast or slow the trainer should go with the lesson. 

The more you train your dog the more you’ll notice how quickly or how slowly he picks things up. Pay close attention to this. What you learn will enhance all future training as you’ll be gaining a deeper understanding of your dog’s learning capabilities. If your dog is learning a skill very quickly, it is likely to be self-rewarding (stealing food off the counter is perfected in a remarkably short period of time) or a breed characteristic that has been strongly ingrained (think “fetch” and Retrievers).

Skills that build on self-rewarding behaviors or natural instincts will be learned and perfected at a much faster rate and have a higher rate of reliability than skills a dog simply doesn’t enjoy doing because of its difficulty. The difficulty your dog is experiencing in any given lesson often can be blamed in one way or another on Mother Nature or, more accurately, on one of the following factors:

• Breed tendencies. Terriers like to do their own thing, for example.

• Breed instincts. Dogs with strong desires to smell, see, herd, dig, run, protect, or sit on the sofa will struggle with tasks they are not designed to excel at.

• Body type. A long back and short legs can be a disadvantage in some maneuvers. 

• Environment. Huskies will struggle in the heat; Boston Terriers will struggle in the cold.

On the plus side, blaming Mother Nature, instead of your dog, can be the key to unlocking empathy for your student, instead of labeling them difficult or stubborn, or assuming they’re just blowing you off. The more empathy a teacher has for her student's difficulty, the more committed the teacher becomes. This deeper commitment to the learning process results in greater patience and a stronger determination to see the training all the way through to the desired result.

So how do we know when to turn the page when we are teaching skills that require stepping stone learning? We don’t assume that we should know, or that we do know, or that we even can know. We ask the dog.  

Of course, dogs can’t speak, so it’s our job to notice what they’re telling us.  When the dog seems to understand the current step fairly well - that’s when you turn the page. Then be patient and give your dog a chance to figure out the next step. Don’t be in a rush to judge if they falter at first, but keep working on the new step for a bit. If your dog is still completely unable to take that next step, then go back to the last step, and make it stronger, but don’t stay on it for too long. A mini-refresher on the last step is often all your dog will need to move forward. 

Remember, your dog is smart and capable. But more than that, they are honest about what they truly understand. Just ask, and they’ll tell you.