Starving for a kiss

A feature story we saw this week told the story of a dog who wouldn’t eat until he got a kiss on the head. Adorable, right? Until you read on and saw that the owner was away and the pet-sitter couldn’t get the dog to eat and didn’t understand why.

It’s a perfect example of a dog learning something the owner didn’t mean, or even want, to teach them.

Dog thinking

Dogs learn in context. That’s why your dog can’t “Sit!” in the bedroom when they do it perfectly in the living room. If the circumstances change, dogs don’t know how to process that. People understand how to apply something they know to new circumstances. Dogs can learn to “generalize,” but it’s something we have to teach them.

We start all of our training classes with Puppy Push-ups. It’s a fast, fun training game. And everyone’s instructed to play it in every room in the house, outside, in the park, wherever they go with their dog. That way the dog learns that the three words; Sit! Stand! and Down!, mean the same thing wherever they are.

Accidental teach

ing

The people in the story probably, like many people, had their dog wait (or stay) while they moved the dog’s food bowl into place. We can imagine that the dog looked so adorable (they all are!), staring longingly at their bowl, the person couldn’t resist kissing the dog. Perfectly understandable.

But for the dog, the kiss became part of the context. Instead of a simple “Okay!” used as a release word, the kiss became part of the routine. Dogs love routine. They learn it quickly and adhere to it whenever they can. 

Dogs are such literal thinkers they’ll pick up on all kinds of things you may or may not mean to teach them. If you always tell your dog to Sit! while you attach their leash, pretty soon the dog will see you reach for the leash and sit automatically. 

They’ll also absorb

 things you don’t mean to teach. Aside from the kiss example, we often see our obedience students trying to tweak their dog’s performance with cues. In the Obedience Recall, you call your dog to “Front!” That means the dog’s supposed to be sitting absolutely straight in front of you, close enough to touch. If the dog isn’t perfectly centered, almost everyone is tempted to pat their leg, or take a little step back, to get their dog in the middle. The problem is that dogs learn to wait for that cue, instead of learning to sit straight from the outset. Of course, you can’t give those cues in competition. 

Notice what you do

Most people won’t have any problems adhering to the routines their dogs learn. But it’s a good idea to notice how you always do things and your dog’s usual response. If there’s something that doesn't work

for you, or wouldn’t be known to another care-giver, it may be a good idea to change it. 

If you always give your dog a kiss on the head before they eat, make sure your pet-sitter knows about it. Your dog will thank you.