One of the consequences of training methods that don’t take into account what and how dogs learn is that they may lose skills we never realized the animals had. Sometimes we may never miss them. But other times the lack of the skill will frustrate us as we struggle to come up with some training method that we or others can and will implement long enough to have a lasting effect. The following response in young puppies is a good example of this. How many of us rue the day we wasted time teaching puppies other commands instead of attaching a “Come” to that maternally taught behavior and reinforcing it! Another such behavior is the “Pay attention to what I’m paying attention to” display that’s the subject of this podcast.
Here’s a picture of Frica (right) giving one of her puppies an outdoor Do-you-see-what-I see? lesson. Notice how she assumes a more relaxed down position while she looks at something in an exaggerated manner, but her 8-week-old pup sits upright in a sentinel position as he attempts to figure out what she’s seeing. This was an easy picture to take because Fric didn’t move a hair until the pup signaled recognition that it was the woodpecker at the suet feeder, not the jays or chickadees in the apple tree that drew her attention. Then she rewarded him with a high-energy celebratory game of zoomie-chase around the yard.
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