Early in a puppy’s training, the puppy learns which behavior we want from him based on the context of the situation. For example, every time we go to our designated training place, we start our session by rewarding the puppy for simply sitting and giving eye contact. We don’t tell him to sit. We just wait for him to offer the behavior. The puppy will quickly learned that every time we go to a certain place and just stand there and look at him, he can offer a sit and be rewarded for it.
Soon after training the puppy to sit, we begin luring the puppy into a down. The puppy learns that if he follows food held close to his face and follows it, he will earn his reward. We don’t have to tell him to follow it. Following food comes naturally.
Then we fade the lure and the puppy learns that when we look at and point towards the ground, he can earn reward by going into a down every time we point to the ground. There are no verbal cues. The puppy just knows what we want based on the context of the situation.
Dogs are extremely contextual. They also are instinctively good at following body language. They understand tone of voice easily. However, differentiating between different words does not come easy. Learning verbal cues is strictly a learned behavior for dogs.
Because understanding words is difficult and because we speak hundreds of words in just a few minutes, dogs learn early to tune out what to them sounds like babble from us. When we repeat a word over and over again before or even while we are training a behavior, the word has no meaning and the dog will practice the habit of tuning out his trainer. Therefore, we never pair a word with a behavior until after the behavior is well-trained.
Dogs learn best when behaviors are broken down into the smallest parts that can be trained separately. This includes teaching them to match the sound of a word to a behavior. Every aspect of a behavior needs to be taught until the behavior is trained to where the trainer is very happy with how the puppy performs it. If a trainer teaches a verbal cue to a puppy before the behavior is completely learned, the puppy could pair an incomplete version of the behavior to the cue.
There is a common saying amongst dog trainers that says, “Don’t name it until you love it.”. I would like to caution those who might be perfectionists that this statement could be taken to the extreme. A behavior does not have to be perfect to be sufficiently trained to be named. It needs to be well-learned in the sense that the puppy understands what he is doing and he knows how to perform the behavior when the context of the situation dictates that the trainer wants that behavior.
If I were waiting for perfection on certain behaviors like heeling or coming to front, my OTCH2 dog might still not have a name for those behaviors! Perfection is not important. What’s important is good understanding of a complete version of the behavior.
Steps for Adding Verbal Cues to Behaviors
If your puppy has a good understanding of the behavior you’re wanting, it’s time to name it. Simply say the name of the behavior just before the puppy does it!
By the time your puppy has good understanding of the behavior, he should be doing the behavior in response to some sort of contextual or physical cue. The puppy should have performed the behavior sufficient times for the trainer to be able to anticipate when the puppy is about to perform the behavior based on either physical cues or context.
If the puppy has been performing the behavior in response to physical cues, simply say the verbal cue just before you give the physical cue. For example, our puppies are trained to go into the down position when we point to the ground with our hand. Therefore, to introduce the “down” cue, I’d say “down” and then immediately after would point to the ground.
At first, the point would come less than a second after the verbal “down”. I would very gradually increase the time between the point and the down. Eventually the puppy will begin anticipating that the physical cue will follow the verbal and will offer the down before you point. At this point, you can fade the physical cue.
If the puppy doesn’t not go into the down after the verbal alone, try waiting a second. Then, give the physical cue if he doesn’t go down. Do not repeat the verbal over and over. This will encourage tune outs.
Some behaviors are not initially trained with a physical cue and instead the puppy performs the behavior in response to contextual cues such as is the case when we train the “sit”. Our puppies learn pretty quickly that sitting with eye contact is the first behavior we reinforce in those initial training sessions. They tend to sit almost immediately when we take them to their designated training place. Therefore, we’re able to introduce the verbal cue simply by saying it as soon as the puppy turns to face us at the start of a session. We say “sit” as soon as the puppy faces us knowing with a good deal of certainty that the puppy is about to sit. If the puppy doesn’t sit, we simply wait for it.
For many repetitions, don’t use the word unless you are reasonably sure that the puppy is about to perform the behavior anyway. Puppies need considerable practice to associate words to behaviors.
Once your puppy has practiced pairing the verbal with the behavior dozens of times, try saying the cue when the context is still similar to how you’ve been practicing the behavior, but when the puppy is not about to do the behavior anyway. The way we train this step when teaching puppies to connect the verbal “sit” to the behavior is to release the puppy from a down/stay, run around and play with the puppy. Then we stand up straight and say the word “sit”.
Practice having your puppy respond to the verbal cue dozens (if not hundreds) of times. Then it’s time to take the training of this behavior to the next level: generalization.
