Getting to Generalized Behavior

Dogs do not "generalize" well. We often think our dogs should automatically understand things because they seem so smart. Their smartness is a product of their ability to "discriminate" so well; dogs are master discriminators.

Generalize means the dog will do the behavior in any setting. So while your dog has learned to sit in the kitchen facing north, he may not understand that he's also to sit in the living room facing east.  Many dogs get punished for "not behaving" when they really don't understand what to do because they haven't learned to generalize yet.  In teaching your dog to generalize behaviors, if you change any one of the conditions the others will suffer... so it is important to plan ahead and work each of them into your training program. The more you train the different conditions and the more you teach generalizing to your dog, the faster he will learn to generalize each time around. People are good at generalizing.

Discriminate refers to a dog's ability to detect little cues about what is going to happen next. For instance, you put on running shoes and your dog gets excited because he realizes the possibility exists that he's going with you.  Put on your church clothes and he becomes subdued because he knows you are leaving and he is not going.  Carefully assess the patterns of things you do before doing other things (such as gathering dog towels and dog shampoo before giving your dog a bath) and you will be able to detect the clues your dog picked up a long time ago. Dogs are better discriminators than people.

When we talk of generalization there are multiple conditions that affect your dog's ability to perform. The conditions are distraction, destination (location), direction, and duress. Until your dog is specifically taught, he will not have generalized a behavior to be performed under these conditions.

There are also criteria that are part of a dog's performance and they can be affected by conditions. The criteria are distance, duration, dispatch (speed), distinct (criteria of the behavior), delay (time between giving the cue and beginning of the behavior) and determination (the dog's level of commitment and confidence regarding the behavior).

As you train your dog, when you change or introduce any of these D's, you should be prepared for a decrease in the dog's ability in respect to the other D's.  In discussing the ten D's, I will use the "sit" behavior as an example. I will discuss behavior criteria first since that is normally how training is done.

Example:

At home you have taught a good sit, its on cue, and you feel it is rock solid.  Your dog will promptly sit on cue, hold it for 2 minutes with you 30 feet away, despite your neighbor playing ball with his kids -- pretty solid performance.  But now you take your dog to a shopping center and discover he is slow to sit (dispatch has decreased), you can only get 5 feet away (distance), the stay may fall apart at 30 seconds (duration). Why? Because you have changed a condition the dog was comfortable with (destination) and added distractions that your dog has not trained for.

So being a savvy trainer and with all the great things you’ve learned here, you reduce your expectation in all the criteria D's while your dog learns to cope with new condition D's of location and distraction and then slowly work up from there. After a few good sessions, you are back to prompt sits on cue, held for 2 minutes with you 30 feet away, despite all the distractions.

Then some klutzy bozo tips over a shopping cart behind your dog just a few feet away and scares him.  This is duress and the whole behavior seems to fall apart. Or someone walks by with a big dog that barks or behaves aggressively, or some person in a flapping raincoat and hat acts weird, or a truck backfires nearby -- each of these could add a new element of duress.

It could equally be that your dog was already afraid of something -- say a certain breed of dog that roughed him up at a tender age and you need to be sure your dog would be able to hold the stay around that breed when you encounter them.  Again you will need to set up a training session (or several depending on the level of duress) to regain your previous level of performance.

Each dog is an individual and will have individual challenges.  Carefully assess your training as it goes along and you will identify those things that require extra attention to help your dog be all she can be.

Gimme here:  In my position as Empress of the Cosmos, it is my job to watch everything.  I am very busy keeping an eye on the whole world.  This is often in  conflict with all the fun training games I play with my person.  We play our training games in many different places several times a week.  My person knows that with practice, I will be able to keep the Cosmos safely controlled in the pad of my paw, while also winning at our training games.  I get better every time we play.

So, in summary, there are 10 D's - distance, duration, dispatch (speed), distinct (criteria of the behavior), delay, determination, distraction, destination (location), direction, and duress. Change or introduce any one and the others will suffer, so plan ahead and you can work each of them into your training program without losing ground.