Episode 5: Remember, Your Dog Is Always Learning

Hello everybody, and welcome back to our next installment of Let’s Go for a Walk. On today’s walk, we are going to discuss a topic that I think is extremely important for people to understand and think about during their dog’s normal daily activities.

This is something that can truly make or break your training because it relates to consistency, though in a more indirect way. The main point we are discussing today is that your dog is not just learning during formal training sessions. Your dog is learning all the time.

Dogs learn especially well when the behaviors they are practicing are effective at fulfilling an innate purpose or when those behaviors produce strong feel-good hormones and neurotransmitters. We will talk more about that in a moment.

Many people plan structured, systematic training sessions where they work on a specific skill for fifteen to thirty minutes a few times a week, or even every day. People are busy, so the amount of time they can dedicate varies. These sessions are usually very controlled. The environment is predictable. The dog may be in a quiet room with few distractions.

During these sessions, people often see progress. Then, outside of training, the dog seems to fall apart. Owners feel like their dog keeps reverting back to the same problem behaviors or even getting worse. They wonder why this is happening when they are dedicating time to training.

Often, the reason is that the dog is practicing the unwanted behavior in other situations where there is no control. Some examples include greeting people inappropriately at the front door, pulling or reacting on leash, barking at the delivery driver, barking at cars passing by, or fence fighting with a neighbor’s dog. These situations are very common.

People may work hard on these behaviors during training sessions, but then the dog is still allowed to practice them when nobody is actively managing the situation. For example, if your dog charges the door and barks every time a delivery driver drops off a package, you might even set up training scenarios where someone walks up to the door with a box so you can practice.

That kind of training is helpful, but it does not fully replicate real life. You eventually need to work up to real-life conditions. The bigger issue is that after the training session ends, the dog may be left alone, and every time a delivery driver shows up, the dog gets to charge the door, bark, jump, and growl. The delivery driver leaves, and the behavior is reinforced.

So what is the dog actually learning?

On top of that, the hormones and neurotransmitters associated with intense emotional and behavioral responses are highly reinforcing and strongly remembered. These experiences are often remembered more vividly than calm training sessions because the dog is already in a heightened state of arousal. That changes how the brain functions and how memories are formed.

This is why it is so important, when trying to change behavior through obedience or new protocols, that your dog is not allowed to continue practicing the unwanted behavior outside of training. If you are dedicating fifteen or thirty minutes a few times a week to training, but the rest of the time your dog is rehearsing the opposite behavior, your training sessions will not be the strongest influence.

In these situations, you may see progress during training and feel encouraged, only to return to the next session and feel like your dog has unlearned everything or even regressed.

There is no single solution because every situation is different. However, it is critical to observe what your dog is doing when you are not training. Pay close attention and take note of patterns that may be undermining your training efforts. Writing things down can help. Keeping a behavior journal, even a simple document or log, can be incredibly useful. This allows you to identify what needs to change, including potential changes to the dog’s environment, so you can make meaningful progress.

That is my talk for today. This topic is incredibly important because it is frustrating for people to invest time, effort, and money into training without seeing results. Often, this is the reason why.

It all comes back to consistency. Consistency is essential for learning in dogs. While learning is complex, the basic idea is that when you are teaching a dog a new response, things need to remain as consistent as possible. If the dog receives mixed signals, they will default to the behavior that feels most natural to them, which is often the behavior you are trying to change.

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