January 11th, 2011
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Progress in your dog’s learning curve may come to a temporary halt. Reaching a plateau is quite natural and happens in all learning, whether it’s a person learning a language or a sport, or a dog in training. After a period of great progress (in dogs this is usually six weeks), during which there is steady improvement, suddenly things not only don’t get better, they seem to get worse. Take a deep breath: this too shall pass. Don’t pressure your dog for a few days and then – just like with people training for a sport – he will suddenly perform better.
Radio show host and pet expert Tracie Hotchner is the author of The Dog Bible and The Cat Bible. Click here to follow her on Twitter. |
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THANKS FOR THE HELPFUL HINT!
This is true. I have had many clients who have thought their dog has stopped learning or is getting worse after weeks of improvement. This is just a phase. Be patient. It all comes back and learning resumes.
i been trying to train and i still having problem
Thank you for writing this to-the-point post about an issue that has everyone fraught with nerves. The number of times I have had to remind myself that it was normal when my dog was hitting a training slump (not that he’s Lassie on the best of days).
You might want to add a brief line about the infamous “extinction burst” too (when a previously decreasing unwanted behaviour briefly comes back with a vengeance), which is just part of the normal extinction process for all mammals (not just dogs).