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Dog Training Workshop, and an element of the Dog Science Network
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Overlearning
The idea of overlearning is to learn something with such extraordinary thoroughness that it can never be forgotten.
When you set out to overteach, and thereby, cause your dog to overlearn some particular task, your goal should be to cause the physical movements involved to be repeated so often that they become neurologically hardwired-in, while the response itself becomes second nature.
If you do that and you do it right, then, for your dog, the idea of disregarding that particular, overlearned command will become unthinkable.
Overlearning necessarily involves a great deal of repetition as you give the command and direct your dog through the motions a great many times over a period of at least several months.
Nonetheless, despite the endless repetition required to shift your dog into a state of overlearning, it is essential that you, nevertheless, find a way to make the entire process thoroughly enjoyable for your dog. Like all of your dog's training, you must keep the ratio of response to reinforcement up high enough to make the overlearning process highly rewarding. You must not ever allow it to become tedious or grinding.