How well does your dog listen when you call their name? If you're hoping to improve your relationship with your pup, then you're in the right place.

Sometimes we like to think that our dog understands a specific behavior completely, but do they? How can we know when our dog truly understands a specific behavior?

Just because your dog knows "recall" inside the home, does that mean they "understand" recall?

Listen to today's discussion and let us know what you think!!

Remember, your dog's behavior almost ALWAYS needs some more practice and training ;) And that really is one of the main focuses of this episode, that oftentimes you just need more practice.

In many cases, the recipe for success is more practice and less freedom for your pup.

Here are a few more things we talked about in this episode ?

The trap many pup parents fall into with training

The rate of success you should shoot for with each behavior

Tools to avoid mistakes when working on new behaviors

How to maximize your dog's likelihood to succeed in new environments, distractions, and moods

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A Poll of Most Difficult Behaviors in New Environments

Vote below to find out what behaviors other pup parents struggle the most with!

Full Podcast/Video Transcript of Does Your Dog Really Understand Behaviors Episode

Welcome to the Perfect Pup Podcast, everybody. We are happy that you are joining us today. Excited to talk with you about today's topic. First of all, sorry for a little bit of lighting issues. We're in a little bit different location today, but we'll get back to normal quickly here on the next one. Today we're going to be talking about how to know when your dog has truly perfected or really ingrained a specific behavior. We're going to look at the steps to getting to that point, how you can test that type of behavior, how you can know when they've actually got there, and how you can feel confident about allowing them a little bit more freedom once they've nailed those behaviors.

We are excited to talk about that. For today's pup dates, you've maybe seen this, it's been going around on social media, been a pretty popular article, but it's phenomenal. So, a dog named Duchess, little small dog was lost 12 or 10 years ago in Florida. The dog slipped out the front door and ran away. They don't know where it went. They figured it was lost. But the pup parent, she continued to pay for the yearly charge for the microchipping and updating their contact information every time they moved. 12 years later, the dog was found in Pittsburgh. It was obviously in pretty rough shape, but they were able to identify the dog via the microchip and get it reunited with its pup parent. 12 years later.

Do they have any idea how Duchess got there?

That's far. That's not, like, a state or two.

That is far. Was that, like,  dogs living on the streets and catching scraps? Or did somebody pick it up and take it part of the way? Did they find it on the streets in Philadelphia? In Pittsburgh?

Yeah. It was found under a shed, in the middle. It was cold and it was in pretty rough shape. So it looked like it hadn't been living with someone. But you do wonder. And that's what one of our article talks about. We'll link it in the episode notes. But you've wondered like, "Man, if that dog could talk." That dog would have a story to tell.

But hats off to the pup parent, as well. The lady who continued to pay, continued to update her contact information. That's dedication. In most people, I'm sure the stats are crazy. Like after X amount of days, the percentage of dogs that do come back, so super hot. That's just a crazy story. It's so awesome. I love that kind of stuff.

That's great, they found her though. Twelve years, that's a long time.

Imagine that reunion. It'd be like... I wonder if the dog's like, "Wait, who are you?"

I wonder how well it remembered them. That is awesome. They have a picture over there. Kind of like giving Duchess a smooch, and Dutchess is like, "Where have you been, man?"

Toy Fox Terrier. So it's just a little guy, too. Traveled over 1,600 kilometers. Look at this little guy. We'll have that linked in the episode notes as well. You can check out this article.

Nice one, Duchess. Hope you're getting a spoiled rotten now, right?

I'm sure the dog's living the dream now, eating steaks every night or something.

So that was the pup dates. Let's roll into today's topic. Mike and I talk about this a lot. A lot of you are probably in the thirty-day perfect pup community that we have on Facebook, where we have over 20,000 people in there. A lot of people asking questions. A lot of people saying, "Hey, this happened. What do I do?" One that we stumble into a lot, we see so many different people asking is, "Does my dog actually understand this behavior?" Or, in most cases, they're saying, "My dog totally knows how to do this. Why is he not responding?" Or "My dog is usually really good at this. Why is he being stubborn?" And that's, unfortunately, this pattern that we see a lot with people. I think we're all guilty of it in one extent to the other. We practice for example, recall, inside the house. We practiced it for a while and the dogs getting it seven, eight, out of ten times. We think "Okay, my dog knows recall." Then you go to a park or something...

Or you go in the backyard and then you go be like, "Hey, come on. Come on, Fido." And they won't come.

They don't come. Then instantly you think, "Oh, why is my dog being stubborn? They know how to come when called. They have a good recall." We're going to talk about how to avoid that trap. Because I think it is a trap, in reality. Right? You put yourself into this false sense of "My dog does understand. I can give them freedom." So we're gonna talk about how to avoid that, how to make sure that your dog truly understands behavior.

All dogs learn at different rates. Some learn faster than others. But in reality, the vast majority of the time it's probably going to take you longer than you think to train your dog to understand behavior. If your dog is only six or seven months old, I would say it's highly unlikely that they are nailing any behavior.

It takes time because it's all a repetition game. It's kind of a numbers game.

Maturity, as well. Yeah. And like what Mike was saying, every dog learns at a different pace. So not a hundred repetition is going to get you perfection at a specific behavior or task. It does take repetition. That's the nature of reinforcement learning, where there has to be enough reinforcement and enough instances where "I did this, I got a reward. This is good." for it to become ingrained like a sure thing with your dog.

So how do you know? How do you know if your dog's nailing a behavior?

How do you know? It's a good question. I don't know if there's a specific answer, because as I was saying, every dog learns differently. But your dog should do it 95% plus. I said 95%. I didn't say 90 because I don't want you to think 9 out of 10 times. Because even 9 out of 10, with that one instance where they don't do it, maybe they don't understand it completely enough. When we talk about complete, most people they want to say, "My dog has a perfect recall." like wherever, whenever, no matter the distraction. That would be a "complete understanding." Where your dog is a hundred yards away, running around with 50 other dogs, and you can call them back, and they come back to you. That would be a "complete recall." But the mistake that we make a lot as pup parents, as we say, we forget that that's the end goal, but there's so many steps in between. There are levels in between to get there. That's one thought. It is remembering the levels of it. Let's talk about how to get there, maybe versus knowing.

I think the basics of how to get there is the same thing that we talk about all the time. A lot of is controlling the environment. You need to start out by controlling or creating the environment right. You can start by getting under nailed behavior in your home.

Does Your Dog Really Understand Behaviors?