This page is part of the Auxiliary section of the Beginner's Course of the
D.S. Dog Training Workshop - an element of the Dog Science Network
How Your Dog Goes About Deciding What He Should Do
Dogs can't understand us when we offer complex verbal descriptions of how we want them to behave in the future. Therefore, to determine what he should and should not do, your dog must work through a process in which he experiments with various behaviors to see what kind of results he gets. That's how dogs learn, not through verbal description, but through experimentation.
For example, you can't use words to tell your dog a week in advance not to take food from the table. Of course you can tell him, but he can't understand you, so your lectures about proper comportment in the dining room will be for naught.
However, there will come a time when your dog will address the issue for himself. Sooner or later he will be standing in the dining room looking at the food as it sits unguarded on the table, and he will wonder what would happen if he took it, and it will occur to him that there is only one way to find out.
When that day comes, he will take food from the table, or at least, he will approach the table, one step at a time, looking around as he asks himself, Is this all right? Is this okay? What will happen if I do this?
If each step toward the off limits food works out, then, he will take yet another step. If he moves over to where the food is and being there works out well for him, then, he will eat the food. If eating the food works out well for him, then, henceforth, he will be taking food from the table at every opportunity.
In any given situation, over time, a dog will develop a sense of what works out for him and what doesn't. Thereafter, he will settle into a predictable pattern of behavior. However, canines in the rapid development of youth, or older dogs placed in new situations, will be in a continual process of testing the waters to see what does and does not produce a desirable consequence in their new environment.
So - that's how it works. Your dog tries things and then decides what he will and will not do in the future based on the results that he gets. The things that work out well for him will become his everyday behaviors, and the things that don't work out for him, he will stop doing.
Your job, then, is to make sure that those behaviors you want to foster, always work out well for your dog, at the same time that you ensure that misbehavior never does.
The Importance of First Responses
For a wise dog trainer, the foremost consideration is always seeing to it that bad behavior never has a chance to get started. If that is your goal, then, it is essential that you understand the importance of first responses.