Dogs have short memories-NOT!

[emmasmamma]

I was so excited a bit ago. Emma and I had never completed the training for the March "shy" competition. It has literally been weeks since we did any training, and she had not mastered doing it without the rubber band around her muzzle. I pulled a handful of treats out earlier today and before I could decide what trick to ask her to do, she proceeded to do the "shy" all on her own! After a split second of shock, I praised her and gave her a treat.:dogtongue2: I was one proud mamma!:msngrin:

 

[yoyopoodle]

Don't you just love when they do that?

It's one of my training strategies: 'You don't want to? Fine. See if I care.' ... in two weeks the dog is going balistic offering the same behavior. The trainer takes a break and the dog suddenly jumps light years ahead

-Jillian

 

[Jean Cote]

HeHeHe, the beauty of dog training at it's best!

 

[achieve1dream]

Memories

This happened to me too! I was teaching Storm to shake her head no by blowing in her ear. Worked on it until I was blue in the face, but she never seemed to do it without me blowing in her ear. Then a couple of days later I had the video camera on her and was asking her to do all of her tricks. Then out of no where she shakes her head! You should have heard the squeals if delight from my sister and me. I am so happy I got that on tape.

 

[l_l_a]

this has happened to me as well!! when I was teaching my dog to put his toys in a box, I started teaching him but then got busy and distracted and forgot all about it. months later I decided to continue it. The minute I took out the box and set it on the ground, my dog just went and got his ball and dropped it in and then looked at me expecting the treat!

 

[Jean Cote]

Actually I would say that they have short ATTENTION SPANS! :dogsmile:

 

[storm22]

i love taking a break and your dog magically knows what you want, it just goes to show they fool us all that they dont know what you want but really they just want to tease us,
storm does this quite often with new tricks, the biggest one was teaching him weave, he just didnt get the hang of it for like 3months (so i thought) then i gave up and about four months later we were running round doing the agility course and he ran up to the weave and did it perfectly i stopped in shock and others told me to reward him for his great effort, i did but i could see on his face that he knew it he just didnt want to do it cause i wanted him too,

 

[dat123]

It's incredible what they remember. As with the previous posts mention, if your dog is struggling with a new trick, you can give it a break for a month or two and pick it up again later with better results.
I trained my oldest dog in flyball over 2 years ago, she always had a problem missing the first jump on the return run. I spent many sessions correcting the problem and just got it right before we quit the sport.
A little while ago we had the opportunity to have a flyball run for fun, I thought she would have forgotten the lot. She did the run straight off first go, after the box it looked like she was going to miss the jump again, she paused for a second, then straightened herself up and did the jump correctly, and completed the whole run properly. So after 2 years without any training, not only did she remember how to do it, she remembered her fault that was corrected.
Dogs certainly have great memories, better than us I think !
Maybe I can get her to remember my pin number for my bank account !!! LOL

 

[szecsuani]

I usually do this, when Pami doesn't get what I want from her. I just take a little break with it, don't train that specific trick, and then, after a little time, we start it again. Usually, she knows the trick better.

 

[jasperaliceuk]

Same here. I've often given training, where I thought I was making no headway, a short break and then lo and behold they've suddenly got it.

Sue