When it feels like your dog is being stubborn, it can be incredibly frustrating. You know what you want your dog to do, and they’re seemingly just not cooperating at all.
However, it might be the case that your pup isn’t being stubborn. Rather, they’re simply misunderstood – they aren’t ignoring the best dog treats for the sake of it! So, what can you do to support your dog and ensure that you’re both on the same page?
Well, award-winning trainer Lisa Burton of Listen Dog Training has shared some handy advice in a recent Instagram post, so let’s take a look.
Burton begins by explaining that, when we try to teach our dogs a cue, the way in which we use food is very important – it’s all about the timing! If you’re calling your dog in from the yard, they ignore you, and then you rattle some treats, you’re teaching them that the verbal cue is simply a sound you’re making for no reason and, instead, the sound of the treats is their command cue. They’re not being stubborn – they think they’re doing what you want them to.
“Dogs simply do not have the capacity to generalize behaviors the way we do,” Burton continues. So, if your pup is very responsive to a sit and stay command at home, but isn’t when you’re out and about, it might be because you haven’t proofed his training.
Proofing refers to perfecting a behavior in a familiar and non-distracting environment, and then teaching it again around a wide range of distractions.
Meanwhile, Burton asks, “Is there an alternative reinforcement on offer that you’re not offering? If you recall-trained your dog with kibble in a distraction-free environment and he happily obliged, that’s because nothing else was on offer better than kibble.”
If your dog won’t recall for kibble when they’re chasing a real animal, for example, it’s because they chose the better offer out of the two available to them. “Dogs are simply looking for a good deal,” Burton explains about training recall in dogs, “Think about the value of the environment and train accordingly.”
She sums up in the caption, “Dogs aren’t defiant – they’re just following their instincts and the training they’ve actually received (even when we don’t realize what we’ve been teaching them!)”
So, while it’s understandable that we might feel frustrated at times – like we might with human children, partners, or relatives, it’s important to keep in mind that our dogs aren’t actually being stubborn. Instead, we should consider what we can do to help our pups understand what we want from them.
Looking for more training advice? Don’t miss these practical tips for training your dog on your own.
