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I had an interesting experience this weekend just gone. If you’ve been reading this ezine for a while you’ll remember me telling you about a friend’s dog that we sometimes look after -
Well we’ve just had him with us again for 3 days. It was his first visit for quite a while. I can’t remember exactly how long, but I reckon it must be about 5 or 6 months. As soon as he arrived it at first looked as if we were almost back to how it was the first time he came. Although he wasn’t fazed by my two, he was still yelling his head off non-stop while his owner was still here. The moment the owner had gone I told our guest to be quiet and he immediately settled down. From that point until the moment he was collected by his owner again yesterday he was good as gold. He’d remembered all the little routines and manners I’d taught him previously and apart from one very small faux pas he didn’t put a foot wrong the whole time he was here. I’ve had no contact with him since the last  time he was here and I know for a fact his owners don’t expect him to do some of the things I expect him to, so all of his behaviour this time around is retained learning from his previous trip.  I think that’s great. From my own point of view it shows me that if we ever have him to stay in the future there’s absolutely no reason at all for him not to just slot straight back into what is now a familiar routine for him.  Which means no extra work for me as I won’t have to go teaching him the way I like things done from scratch again.

But perhaps more interestingly for you it shows you that once a dog has learnt something that memory should be fixed in the medium term at the very least, and quite likely permanently. Once you’ve taught your dog something don’t keep slogging away making it do that thing over and over again. If you do the dog will get bored and start to play up. By all means give a short refresher lesson every now and then to make sure the memory and response remains sharp, but don’t go flogging a dead horse.  Instead look to stretch your dog further by teaching it more complicated variations or just different skills altogether.  The dog will enjoy it more and you will gain far more satisfaction at having achieved a more difficult goal.  And a real add-on benefit is that in the process the bond you already have with your dog will be much stronger and closer.
Written by Andrew Chastney – www.dogtrainingblueprint.com