So why it is useful to teach 3 behaviours, the sit, stand and down to a puppy and not
just sit and down.
These are some of the first behaviours we start teaching a
puppy, they are simple, easy and can be lured with food creating a nice
positive force free introduction to learning/training
A puppy will follow the food lure and then eventually the
hand movement without food in it, and we then add words called cues or commands
The puppy will mainly at first actually be watching your
hand movement and food and not really listening to the word. The hand movement is a
visual cue and the word is a verbal cue.
At first for the behaviour (sit, stand or down) to happen the hand movement will probably be needed and it wont happend just on a verbal cue. This movement needs to be faded out gradually and then the behaviour will happen on just a verbal cue
Things to consider :
Sit and Down only
If you just teach the sit and down the puppy cannot get it
wrong and may not learn to listen to specific cues but just to do the 'other'
behaviour it knows when you say a word. The perception is the puppy is learning
correctly because it is getting it right. If the puppy is sat and say down it only knows one other thing to do so will get it right, if the puppy is in the down and you say sit, its going to get it right.
You can test this by saying sit if
the puppy is already sat or another random word and see if the puppy lies down.
Sit, Stand and Down
If you teach the three behaviours, you can mix them up so it
is unpredictable and the puppy can make errors. If the puppy is in the sit and you say down it now has a 50/50 chance of success, this means you can test if the
dog is listening to the specific words (sit, stand and down) The puppy is now learning the skill of listening to different verbal cues.
Another common handler error that can happen is the handler
cues stand to the puppy which is already in the sit and it lies down, then the
puppy stands as there was no reward for the down. If the handler was to reward
the puppy, the puppy learns not to do the stand on the ‘stand’ cue, but to throw
its repertoire of behaviours at the handler and it eventually get the right one
and gets rewarded. The puppy then learns to just throw behaviours and it eventually
gets paid. Therefore the hander must only reward if the correct behaviour
occurs on cue straight away
Errors
I like a dog to make errors so it can compare and then
demonstrate true understanding, however I never allow a dog to make more that 3
errors, I reset the dog up for success after two. If a reward is withheld then
it enables the dog stop and think what was different. Too much failure is frustrating and the
learning experience becomes negative, even punishing. Think about how you have
felt when you have repeatedly failed at something? Also consider how rewarding
it then is to get it right? This is very fine balance and it needs to be
adapted to the individual dog. Learning to fail and try again is very valuable
learning and life skill for a puppy.
