Never heard the word sit!

Discussion in 'Labrador Training' started by Inky lab, Mar 12, 2017.

  1. Inky lab

    Inky lab Registered Users

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    Mar 2, 2017
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    Sorry, this seems like a minor thing but I'm not sure how to sort it. My lovely lab is 5 1/2 months old. He's quite good at commands like sit and lie but sometimes looks at me as though he's never heard either word before! If he's walking on the lead, we stop at every road crossing for him to sit, occasionally straight away, often a long pause, sometimes not at all. I'm not sure if I should reward him if it's slow and not sure what to do if he just looks at me.
     
  2. Snowshoe

    Snowshoe Registered Users

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    Sep 5, 2015
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    Ontario, Canada
    You might be running into a learning theory I studied while training for teaching adults (humans ;) ) at commnunity college. How it goes is, what we learn is stored first in our short term memory. We practice and study till we really understand it, we've "got it," and then it moves to long term memory. This might be around five weeks but varies. The theory goes that while the learned whatever it is is moving from short term to long term memory it is temporarily unavailable for use, and appears to have been forgotten. Darned if our puppy teacher didn't tell us about the same theory and said it applies to dogs too.

    What to do? We were told to expect this to happen. When/if it does slow down, back up to some things puppy does know. For instance he may still know what SIT means when you say it in your house but hasn't grasped yet that it applies outside too. REpeat the beginning steps, be patient and know he isn't doing it on purpose.
     
    selina27 likes this.

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