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Pupforum presents your training questions answered by professional dog trainers.
Jean is a graduate of Animal Behavior College and teaches basic obedience using positive motivation training techniques. She is a member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and has been teaching family dog basic obedience for three years. Jean is also a graduate of Northeastern University and is the co-founder of pupforum.com.
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12/3/2004
I am interested in information about how dogs learn. Each breed and each individual dog is different of course, but is it true it takes on average 6 weeks for a dog to permanently learn a new cue/command? Do you believe there is a learning curve for dogs which tends to level off at the 6 week training mark? And any information you can provide about the actual learning process would be greatly appreciated. Thank you Lila (lila, Ontario)
To tell you the truth Lila, I've never heard that it takes a certain amount of time for a dog to learn. What I have learned in my experience is that what it really takes for a dog to learn is a good means of communication and a certain amount of repetition. I've also learned that it takes fewer repetitions for a dog to learn a rewarding behavior.
Your question brings to mind a story about my sister. My older sister and her husband are not particularly dog people. They have a dog because their two-year old loves dogs (much like her aunt). When they first brought Olivia, a one year old lab mix home from the pound, they had all kinds of problems. Olivia was a stray dog, so they would find her standing on the dining room table sucking up crumbs, running out of the front door whenever she had the chance, romping through the house entertaining herself, etc.
Kate, my sister, called me up and said, "Don't train my dog, I'm not interested and I won't follow through, but please, how can I teach her how to act in the house?" My advice to her was to buy
a bag of dog treats for every room in the house. Any time she caught Olivia lying down quietly, Kate was to throw a treat to Olivia without saying a word. This was a routine my sister and her husband could handle. The treats became the means of communication. Olivia learned in a matter of days that lying down meant treats. The treat ritual did not need to go on for more than a week or two. Olivia had learned that lying down is good, and she did it voluntarily.
A few months later, it was time for my niece Amelia to start sleeping in a big girl bed. Like most toddlers, she wanted to sleep with her mom and dad. Kate convinced her daughter that instead, Olivia might like to sleep with her. So Kate bought a comfy dog bed to put in Amelia's room, called Olivia in while they were reading a bedtime story, and threw some treats to Olivia when she lay down on the dog bed. It took exactly two nights for Olivia to learn that she should sleep in Amelia's room. And from a woman who doesn't want to train her dog. I was so proud of both of them.
All in all, dogs just want to please their owners. Sometimes it's hard because they have too much energy, or they are confused about what their owners might want. But if you find a way to show your dog what you want, and be consistent about what you ask for, your dog should learn much faster than in six weeks. And about that learning curve, I disagree completely that a dog tends to level off at the six-week mark. Your dog will learn as many cues and tricks as you make rewarding for him
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